Poetry Revisited: The Ancient of Days by G. K. Chesterton

The Ancient of Days

(from The Wild Knight and Other Poems: 1900)

A child sits in a sunny place,
Too happy for a smile,
And plays through one long holiday
With balls to roll and pile;
A painted wind-mill by his side
Runs like a merry tune,
But the sails are the four great winds of heaven,
And the balls are the sun and moon.

A staring doll's-house shows to him
Green floors and starry rafter,
And many-coloured graven dolls
Live for his lonely laughter.
The dolls have crowns and aureoles,
Helmets and horns and wings.
For they are the saints and seraphim,
The prophets and the kings.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936)
English writer, lay theologian, poet, philosopher, dramatist, journalist,
orator, literary and art critic, biographer, and Christian apologist