Name: The ballad of the white horse
ISBN: 9781976499708

What Hacker News says

michaelsbradleyDec 2014

Epic poetry seems to have died out, at least for a time, as a literary art form. Will it make a comeback? Would or could the Internet play a role in such a comeback?

One of the last great epic poems written in the English language is G.K. Chesterton's The Ballad of the White Horse:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_the_White_Horse

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_the_White_Horse

Readers here who have their interest stirred by Dante's poetry might enjoy Chesterton's work.

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svieiraAug 2026

  For the end of the world was long ago,
  And all we dwell to-day
  As children of some second birth,
  Like a strange people left on earth
  After a judgment day.

  For the end of the world was long ago,
  When the ends of the world waxed free,
  When Rome was sunk in a waste of slaves,
  And the sun drowned in the sea.

  When Caesar's sun fell out of the sky
  And whoso hearkened right
  Could only hear the plunging
  Of the nations in the night.

  When the ends of the earth came marching in
  To torch and cresset gleam.
  And the roads of the world that lead to Rome
  Were filled with faces that moved like foam,
  Like faces in a dream.

  And men rode out of the eastern lands,
  Broad river and burning plain;
  Trees that are Titan flowers to see,
  And tiger skies, striped horribly,
  With tints of tropic rain.

  Where Ind's enamelled peaks arise
  Around that inmost one,
  Where ancient eagles on its brink,
  Vast as archangels, gather and drink
  The sacrament of the sun.

  And men brake out of the northern lands,
  Enormous lands alone,
  Where a spell is laid upon life and lust
  And the rain is changed to a silver dust
  And the sea to a great green stone.

  And a Shape that moveth murkily
  In mirrors of ice and night,
  Hath blanched with fear all beasts and birds,
  As death and a shock of evil words
  Blast a man's hair with white.

  And the cry of the palms and the purple moons,
  Or the cry of the frost and foam,
  Swept ever around an inmost place,
  And the din of distant race on race
  Cried and replied round Rome.

  And there was death on the Emperor
  And night upon the Pope:
  And Alfred, hiding in deep grass,
  Hardened his heart with hope.

  A sea-folk blinder than the sea
  Broke all about his land,
  But Alfred up against them bare
  And gripped the ground and grasped the air,
  Staggered, and strove to stand.

  He bent them back with spear and spade,
  With desperate dyke and wall,
  With foemen leaning on his shield
  And roaring on him when he reeled;
  And no help came at all.

  He broke them with a broken sword
  A little towards the sea,
  And for one hour of panting peace,
  Ringed with a roar that would not cease,
  With golden crown and girded fleece
  Made laws under a tree.

-----

G. K. Chesterton - The Ballad of the White Horse - https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1719/1719-h/1719-h.htm

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svieiraJan 2025

"Before the gods that made the gods Had seen their sunrise pass The White Horse of the White Horse Vale Was cut out of the grass"

The Ballad of the White Horse by G. K. Chesterton - https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1719/1719-h/1719-h.htm

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svieiraDec 2020

There's an old apocryphal story about the Chinese and the Japanese duking it out in the prelude to WWII that applies here, but there's also a poem far closer:

> That though all lances split on you, > All swords be heaved in vain, > We have more lust again to lose > Than you to win again.

~ G. K. Chesterton - The Ballad of the White Horse - Book III https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1719/1719-h/1719-h.htm#link2...

The side that is willing to loose one more time than the "winning" side is willing to win ... they win in the end.

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