G.K. Chesterton’s House of Christmas Poem
This weekend begins the first week of Advent 2023. I figured it was appropriate to begin this season with a short Chesterton poem to reflect on.
I’m currently reading The Everlasting Man. I’ll be writing my thoughts on that novel soon. If you’re like me and have never read G.K. Chesterton’s work before, this may be a short and simple introduction. It’s shorter than his essays and much shorter than a novel.
Source: Burton Egbert Stevenson, ed., The Home Book of Verse, Volume 1 (New York: Henry Holt And Company, 1912); Project Gutenberg Etext #2619
Original poem by G.K. Chesterton
There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honor and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam,
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost — how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.This world is wild as an old wives’ tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.
A quick reflection:
Like when reading C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien it’s hard to miss the all Christian worldview allegories. Chesterton’s poem isn’t just on the nose but rather blunt about what the poem is about summarizing the whole poem in the last two verses.
My favorite imagery in the poem is the “fire-drake swings”. The drakes are considered dragons according to mythology. According to Tolkien the fire-drakes are one of the two most powerful dragons along with the cold-drakes. See, Tolkien Gateways, explanation for more on fire-drakes.
One cannot miss the similarities between this telling of the Nativity and the book of Revelation’s Woman and the Dragon:
A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth. Then another sign appeared in the sky; it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadems. Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth. She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod. Her child was caught up to God and his throne. The woman herself fled into the desert where she had a place prepared by God, that there she might be taken care of for twelve hundred and sixty days. Then war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels battled against the dragon. The dragon and its angels fought back, but they did not prevail and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The huge dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world, was thrown down to earth, and its angels were thrown down with it. — Revelation 12:1–9, USCCB New American Bible, Catholic-Edition
For anyone coming from a Christian worldview this poem is short, sweet and to the point. It’s a story about Christmas, the first Christmas and how it ties to our modern times.
Perhaps I’m reading too much into the fire-drakes connection to the dragon of Revelation. However, after reading Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary by Brant Pitre, it’s difficult not to associate the connection.
Here is what Brant Pitre had to say about Revelation 12:
“The use of such an unusual term to describe the sufferings of the mother of the Messiah strongly suggests that Revelation is employing the language of symbolism. The imagery of birth pangs is being utilized to refer to the tribulations at the end of the age,” author Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary: Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah
The beginning of the poem is focused on the Virgin Mary’s homelessness setting out to find a place to give birth to the Messiah. This is contrasted by all who are at home but for inexplicable reasons are “homesick” anyway.
It’s a paradox.
Where God is homeless we’re at home and were we’re home we’re homesick.
And what about the miraculous skies? Well, we all know that stars are much older than us, our tales, and even the bible. My understanding is that if we place our understanding on something timeless like stars, we’ll come to a biblical conclusion.
We can say definitely that we are homesick in our homes. Things are never quite right in our lives. Happiness is out of grasp. There really was a woman homeless looking where to give birth to a Redeemer. Then that story ties in to the end of age filled with wars, destruction, and ultimately redemption and joy.
Or is “our peace is put in impossible things”?
Well, for a simple, straight forward poem the paradox does make you ponder.
And ponder all Advent long.
