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Poem: Wine and Water

by on Feb 25, 2017 in Poetry
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Wine and Water

Old Noah he had an ostrich farm and fowls on the largest scale,
He ate his egg with a ladle in a egg-cup big as a pail,
And the soup he took was Elephant Soup and fish he took was Whale,
But they all were small to the cellar he took when he set out to sail,
And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine,
“I don’t care where the water goes if it doesn’t get into the wine.”

The cataract of the cliff of heaven fell blinding off the brink
As if it would wash the stars away as suds go down a sink,
The seven heavens came roaring down for the throats of hell to drink,
And Noah he cocked his eye and said, “It looks like rain, I think,
The water has drowned the Matterhorn as deep as a Mendip mine,
But I don’t care where the water goes if it doesn’t get into the wine.”

But Noah he sinned, and we have sinned; on tipsy feet we trod,
Till a great big black teetotaller was sent to us for a rod,
And you can’t get wine at a P.S.A., or chapel, or Eisteddfod,
For the Curse of Water has come again because of the wrath of God,
And water is on the Bishop’s board and the Higher Thinker’s shrine,
But I don’t care where the water goes if it doesn’t get into the wine.

G. K. Chesterton


G. K. Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an English writer, philosopher, biographer, and literary and art critic. He who wrote 80 books, hundreds of poems, approximately 200 short stories, and several plays. He wrote the book called The Everlasting Man, which led a young atheist named C.S. Lewis to become a Christian. His best-known character is the priest-detective Father Brown who appeared in short stories. His most famous novel is The Man Who Was Thursday. He was a Christian before he became a Catholic. Christian themes and symbolism appear in much of his writing.