The Convert
After one moment when I bowed my head
And the whole world turned over and came upright,
And I came out where the old road shone white,
I walked the ways and heard what all men said,
Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,
Being not unlovable but strange and light;
Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite
But softly, as men smile about the dead.
The sages have a hundred maps to give
That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,
They rattle reason out through many a sieve
That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:
And all these things are less than dust to me
Because my name is Lazarus and I live.
--GK Chesterton
After one moment when I bowed my head
And the whole world turned over and came upright,
And I came out where the old road shone white,
I walked the ways and heard what all men said,
Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,
Being not unlovable but strange and light;
Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite
But softly, as men smile about the dead.
The sages have a hundred maps to give
That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,
They rattle reason out through many a sieve
That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:
And all these things are less than dust to me
Because my name is Lazarus and I live.
--GK Chesterton
Wow, very powerful poem indeed. Poems are always interpreted by people, wondering what they mean, but to each person it means something else, something special to each individual reader, especially poems like these.
ReplyDeleteI really feel like Chesterton here has alluded to how a Christian feels after the conversion to Christianity and how one should feel about the treasures of this world. Matthew 6:19 says , "do not store up for yourselves treasures on this earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal." Another part of this poem I enjoyed is how Chesterton emphasized his notion of saying how "all these things are less than dust to me", this signifies how a Christian should dedicate their life not towards the things in this life, but towards the riches of the Kingdom of God.
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