Happy birthday, Belloc.

Hilaire Belloc was born on this day in 1870.

LINES to a DON

Remote and ineffectual Don

That dared attack my Chesterton,

With that poor weapon, half-impelled,

Unlearnt, unsteady, hardly held,

Unworthy for a tilt with men--

Your quavering and corroded pen;

Don poor at Bed and worse at Table,

Don pinched, Don starved, Don miserable;

Don stuttering, Don with roving eyes,

Don nervous, Don of crudities;

Don clerical, Don ordinary,

Don self-absorbed and solitary;

Don here-and-there, Don epileptic;

Don puffed and empty, Don dyspeptic;

Don middle-class, Don sycophantic,

Don dull, Don brutish, Don pedantic;

Don hypocritical, Don bad,

Don furtive, Don three-quarters mad;

Don (since a man must make and end),

Don that shall never be my friend.

Don different from those regal Dons!

With hearts of gold and lungs of bronze,

Who shout and bang and roar and bawl

The Absolute across the hall,

Or sail in amply bellying gown

Enormous through the Sacred Town,

Bearing from College to their homes

Deep cargoes of gigantic tomes;

Dons admirable! Dons of Might!

Uprising on my inward sight

Compact of ancient tales, and port

And sleep--and learning of a sort.

Dons English, worthy of the land;

Dons rooted; Dons that understand.

Good Dons perpetual that remain

A landmark, walling in the plain--

The horizon of my memories--

Like large and comfortable trees.

Don very much apart from these,

Thou scapegoat Don, thou Don devoted,

Don to thine own damnation quoted,

Perplexed to find thy trivial name

Reared in my verse to lasting shame.

Don dreadful, rasping Don and wearing,

Repulsive Don--Don past all bearing.

Don of the cold and doubtful breath,

Don despicable, Don of death;

Don nasty, skimpy, silent, level;

Don evil, Don that serves the devil.

Don ugly--that makes fifty lines.

There is a Canon which confines

A Rhymed Octosyllabic Curse

If written in Iambic Verse

To fifty lines. I never cut;

I far prefer to end it--but

Believe me I shall soon return.

My fires are banked, but still they burn

To write some more about the Don

That dared attack my Chesterton.

Hilaire Belloc