Christmas 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 honour 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 wife's 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 all 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.

     (Gilbert Keith Chesterton)