Finished Reading “Heretics”

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  "G. K. Chesterton, the "Prince of Paradox," is at his witty best in this collection of twenty essays and articles from the turn of the twentieth century. Focusing on  "heretics" - those who pride themselves on their superiority to Christian views - Chesterton appraises prominent figures who fall into that category from the literary and art worlds... those who hold incomplete and inadequate views about "life, the universe, and everything." He is, in short, criticizing all that host of non-Christian views of reality, as he demonstrated in his follow-up book Orthodoxy. The book is both an easy read and a difficult read. But he manages to demonstrate, among other things, that our new 21st century heresies are really not new because he himself deals with most of them." (Goodreads)

A Sonnet

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“My God, where is that ancient heat towards thee,
Wherewith whole shoals of martyrs once did burn,
Besides their other flames? Doth poetry
Wear Venus' livery? only serve her turn?
Why are not sonnets made of thee? and lays
Upon thine altar burnt? Cannot thy love
Heighten a spirit to sound out thy praise
As well as any she? Cannot thy Dove
Outstrip their Cupid easily in flight?
Or, since thy ways are deep, and still the fame,
Will not a verse run smooth that bears thy name!
Why doth that fire, which by thy power and might
Each breast does feel, no braver fuel choose
Than that, which one day, worms may chance refuse.

Sure Lord, there is enough in thee to dry
Oceans of ink; for, as the Deluge did
Cover the earth, so doth thy Majesty:
Each cloud distills thy praise, and doth forbid
Poets to turn it to another use.
Roses and lilies speak thee; and to make
A pair of cheeks of them, is thy abuse
Why should I women's eyes for crystal take?
Such poor invention burns in their low mind
Whose fire is wild, and doth not upward go
To praise, and on thee, Lord, some ink bestow.
Open the bones, and you shall nothing find
In the best face but filth; when Lord, in thee
The beauty lies in the discovery.”


George Herbert (1593-1633), written at the age of 17, dedicated to his mother

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