Femina Contra Mundum

Chesterton had an excellent sense both of the beauty of the world and of its ephemerality, weakness, and dependence on the supernatural. He could affirm, with Juan Donoso Cortes, that all human efforts are likely to flounder and fail; but he could also affirm that each blade of grass was a miracle of divine goodness. The second element comes through more clearly in this somewhat romantic poem.

Femina Contra Mundum

The sun was black with judgment, and the moon
Blood: but between
I saw a man stand, saying: 'To me at least
The grass is green.

'There was no star that I forgot to fear
With love and wonder.
The birds have loved me'; but no answer came --
Only the thunder.
---

Once more the man stood, saying: 'A cottage door,
Wherethrough I gazed
That instant as I turned -- yea, I am vile;
Yet my eyes blazed.

'For I had weighed the mountains in a balance,
And the skies in a scale,
I come to sell the stars -- old lamps for new --
Old stars for sale.'

Then a calm voice fell all the thunder through,
A tone less rough:
'Thou hast begun to love one of my works
Almost enough.'