The Poet

Though Chesterton was a prolific poet and clearly enjoyed writing poetry (which he did at the lightest provocation), a relatively small number of his poems have proved durable—though two of them, Lepanto and The Ballad of the White Horse, have become indisputable classics. It is probably true to say that Chesterton’s poetry is not where his real genius lies. T.S.Eliot wrote that ‘his poetry was first-rate journalistic balladry, and I do not suppose that he took it more seriously than it deserved’. His poetry, nevertheless, should not be underrated. A number of his shorter poems—most famously ‘The Donkey’—have become universally known anthology pieces, and his first published book Greybeards at Play (1900)—contained, according to W.H.Auden, poems which were not merely ‘enchanting,’ but ‘some of the best pure nonsense verse in English’; he added that ‘very few of his “serious” poems are as good as these’.

Nonsense Verse
"The Oneness of the Philosopher with Nature"
from Greybeards at Play (1900)

The Poetry of warfare for Christendom
i) from "The Ballad of the White Horse" (1911)
ii) "Lepanto" (1912)