Poem by Hilaire Belloc

The Fanatic

  Last night in Compton Street, Soho,
  A man whom many of you know
  Gave up the ghost at half past nine.
  That evening he had been to dine
  At Gressington’s--an act unwise,
  But not the cause of his demise.
  The doctors all agree that he
  Was touched with cardiac atrophy
  Accelerated (more or less)
  By lack of proper food, distress,
  Uncleanliness, and loss of sleep.
    He was a man that could not keep
  His money (when he had the same)
  Because of creditors who came
  And took it from him; and he gave
  So freely that he could not save.
    But all the while a sort of whim
  Persistently remained with him,
  Half admirable, half absurd:
  To keep his word, to keep his word....
  By which he did not mean what you
  And I would mean (of payments due
  Or punctual rental of the Flat--
  He was a deal too mad for that)
  But--as he put it with a fine
  Abandon, foolish or divine--
  But “That great word which every man
  Gave God before his life began.”
  It was a sacred word, he said,
  Which comforted the pathless dead
  And made God smile when it was shown
  Unforfeited, before the Throne.
  And this (he said) he meant to hold
  In spite of debt, and hate, and cold;
  And this (he said) he meant to show
  As passport to the wards below.
  He boasted of it and gave praise
  To his own self through all his days.
    He wrote a record to preserve
  How steadfastly he did not swerve
  From keeping it; how stiff he stood
  Its guardian, and maintained it good.
  He had two witnesses to swear
  He kept it once in Berkeley Square.
  (Where hardly anything survives)
  And, through the loneliest of lives
  He kept it clean, he kept it still,
  Down to the last extremes of ill.
    So when he died, of many friends
  Who came in crowds from all the ends
  Of London, that it might be known
  They knew the man who died alone,
  Some, who had thought his mood sublime
  And sent him soup from time to time,
  Said, “Well, you cannot make them fit
  The world, and there’s an end of it!”
  But others, wondering at him, said:
  “The man that kept his word is dead!”
    Then angrily, a certain third
  Cried, “Gentlemen, he kept his word.
  And as a man whom beasts surround
  Tumultuous, on a little mound
  Stands Archer, for one dreadful hour,
  Because a Man is borne to Power--
  And still, to daunt the pack below,
  Twangs the clear purpose of his bow,
  Till overwhelmed he dares to fall:
  So stood this bulwark of us all.
  He kept his word as none but he
  Could keep it, and as did not we.
  And round him as he kept his word
  To-day’s diseased and faithless herd,
  A moment loud, a moment strong,
  But foul forever, rolled along.”

1. Noël
2. To Dives
3. Stanzas Written on Battersea Bridge during a South-Westerly Gale
4. In a Boat
5. Courtesy

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