The Napoleon of Notting Hill

TO HILAIRE BELLOC For every tiny town or place God made the stars especially; Babies look up with owlish face And see them tangled in a tree; You saw a moon from Sussex Downs, A Sussex moon, untravelled still, I saw a moon that was the town’s, The largest lamp on Campden Hill. Yea; Heaven is everywhere at home The big blue cap that always fits, And so it is (be calm; they come To goal at last, my wandering wits), So is it with the heroic thing; This shall not end for the world’s end And though the sullen engines swing, Be you not much afraid, my friend. This did not end by Nelson’s urn Where an immortal England sits— Nor where your tall young men in turn Drank death like wine at Austerlitz. And when the pedants bade us mark What cold mechanic happenings Must come; our souls said in the dark, “Belike; but there are likelier things.” Likelier across these flats afar These sulky levels smooth and free The drums shall crash a waltz of war And Death shall dance with Liberty; Likelier the barricades shall blare Slaughter below and smoke above, And death and hate and hell declare That men have found a thing to love. Far from your sunny uplands set I saw the dream; the streets I trod The lit straight streets shot out and met The starry streets that point to God. This legend of an epic hour A child I dreamed, and dream it still, Under the great grey water-tower That strikes the stars on Campden Hill — G.K.C.