Wine, Water, and Song — Key Ideas to Explore

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Authors: Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith), 1874-1936 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2011 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: English poetry Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

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Words 7,043

Reading time 31 min

Text sections 1

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Source: Project Gutenberg record #35115

This collection of poems, drawn from Chesterton's novel 'The Flying Inn,' uses wit and paradox to celebrate Englishness, ale, and wine while mocking teetotalism, vegetarianism, and hypocrisy. The verses feature recurring motifs of St. George, Noah, and a roguish narrator who champions hearty pleasures against watery substitutes.

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[ Transcriber's Notes:

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation; no changes have been made to the original text.

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WINE, WATER, AND SONG

CHARLES DICKENS THE BALLAD OF THE WHITE HORSE THE FLYING INN ALL THINGS CONSIDERED TREMENDOUS TRIFLES ALARMS AND DISCURSIONS A MISCELLANY OF MEN

METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON

First Published August 6th 1915 Second Edition August 10th 1915 Third Edition August 23rd 1915

The Songs in this book are taken from "THE FLYING INN," with the exception of "The Good Rich Man" and "The Song of the Strange Ascetic," which are here included by kind permission of the editor of =The New Witness=, where they originally appeared.

The Song against Grocers 15

The Rolling English Road 20

The Song of Quoodle 24

Pioneers, O Pioneers 27

The Logical Vegetarian 31

"The Saracen's Head" 34

The Song against Songs 42

The Song of the Oak 49

The Road to Roundabout 53

The Song of the Strange Ascetic 57

The Song of Right and Wrong 60

WINE, WATER, AND SONG

St. George he was for England, And before he killed the dragon He drank a pint of English ale Out of an English flagon. For though he fast right readily In hair-shirt or in mail, It isn't safe to give him cakes Unless you give him ale.

St. George he was for England, And right gallantly set free The lady left for dragon's meat And tied up to a tree; But since he stood for England And knew what England means, Unless you give him bacon You mustn't give him beans.

St. George he is for England, And shall wear the shield he wore When we go out in armour With the battle-cross before. But though he is jolly company And very pleased to dine, It isn't safe to give him nuts Unless you give him wine.

Old Noah he had an ostrich farm and fowls on the largest scale, He ate his egg with a ladle in an egg-cup big as a pail, And the soup he took was Elephant Soup and the 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.

The Song Against Grocers

God made the wicked Grocer For a mystery and a sign, That men might shun the awful shops And go to inns to dine; Where the bacon's on the rafter And the wine is in the wood, And God that made good laughter Has seen that they are good.

The evil-hearted Grocer Would call his mother "Ma'am," And bow at her and bob at her, Her aged soul to damn, And rub his horrid hands and ask What article was next, Though =mortis in articulo= Should be her proper text.

His props are not his children, But pert lads underpaid, Who call out "Cash!" and bang about To work his wicked trade; He keeps a lady in a cage Most cruelly all day, And makes her count and calls her "Miss" Until she fades away.

The righteous minds of innkeepers Induce them now and then To crack a bottle with a friend Or treat unmoneyed men, But who hath seen the Grocer Treat housemaids to his teas Or crack a bottle of fish-sauce Or stand a man a cheese?

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The first poem, 'The Englishman,' immediately establishes a pattern of playful, combative nationalism. St. George is presented not as a saintly ascetic but as a man who 'drank a pint of English ale / Out of an English flagon.' The stanza structure—three lines of narrative followed by a punchy, rhymed couplet—recurs throughout the collection, giving each poem a ballad-like momentum. Chesterton’s voice is unmistakable: he uses food and drink as moral symbols, equating ale with freedom and beans with constraint. Readers should watch for how this opening poem sets up a binary (ale vs. cakes, bacon vs. beans) that the later poems expand into a full-blown comic war between robust indulgence and timid reform.

Noah’s Cellar and the Flood of Temperance

'Wine and Water' takes the biblical flood and turns it into a joke about Noah’s priorities. The refrain—'I don't care where the water goes if it doesn't get into the wine'—is repeated with variations, each time after an increasingly absurd description of the deluge. The cataract of heaven is 'blinding off the brink,' washing stars away 'as suds go down a sink.' Chesterton’s hyperbole serves a serious point: the poem ends with a 'great big black teetotaller' sent as a rod, and the final lines lament that 'you can't get wine' because water has triumphed. This poem is the collection’s theological center, using Noah as a figure of sensible hedonism. Notice how the rhyme scheme—long, rolling couplets that mimic the flood’s momentum—contrasts with the clipped, bitter final stanza.

The Grocer, the Quoodle, and the Logical Vegetarian

Several poems target specific types of hypocrisy. 'The Song against Grocers' attacks merchants who sell 'tea and coffee' and 'butter and eggs' while pretending to be honest; Chesterton calls them 'the poisoners of England.' 'The Song of Quoodle' is a dog’s lament that humans have lost their sense of smell, a metaphor for losing instinctual joy. 'The Logical Vegetarian' satirizes a man who 'eats his dinner with a fork' and 'cannot eat his dinner with a fork'—a paradox that mocks rigid dietary rules. These poems share a structure: a series of hypotheticals ('If I had been a Heathen…') that contrast the speaker’s imagined freedom with the vegetarian’s dreary life. The recurring word 'Heathen' is used ironically, as the speaker implies that true paganism is more honest than modern piety.

The Rolling English Road and the Song of the Oak

'The Rolling English Road' is one of Chesterton’s best-known poems, celebrating the drunken, winding roads of England that 'go rolling all alone.' The poem’s meter mimics a lurching walk, with lines like 'Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode.' 'The Song of the Oak' personifies the oak tree as a symbol of English endurance, contrasting it with 'the foreign tree' that 'grows in a foreign land.' Both poems use natural imagery to argue for a native, organic tradition against imported ideas. The oak is 'the tree that grows in the good green wood,' and the road is 'the road that goes to heaven.' These poems are less satirical than the earlier ones, offering a positive vision of Englishness rooted in landscape and history.

Paradox and the Riddle of Right and Wrong

The collection’s final poems sharpen the moral paradoxes. 'The Song of Right and Wrong' declares that 'feast on wine or fast on water, / And your honour shall stand sure,' but then attacks tea, cocoa, and soda water as corrupt. The logic is deliberately perverse: it is not the substance but the attitude that matters. 'Who Goes Home?' shifts to a darker tone, with a refrain that echoes a parliamentary call but answers it with blood and battle. The poem ends with a 'voice valedictory' asking 'Who is for Victory? / Who is for Liberty? / Who goes home?' This ambiguity—home as death, home as England, home as a pub—leaves the reader with a riddle. Throughout, Chesterton uses simple rhyme schemes to deliver complex arguments, often turning a stanza on its head with a final line that contradicts the preceding ones.

Readers approaching this collection for the first time should pay attention to the tension between the rollicking surface and the serious undercurrent. Chesterton’s poems are not mere drinking songs; they are arguments about freedom, tradition, and the dangers of reform. The recurring figures of Noah, St. George, and the 'Heathen' serve as touchstones for a worldview that values joy over utility. The poems reward rereading, as the paradoxes often reveal deeper layers on second encounter.

I keep thinking about how Chesterton’s ale-soaked verses celebrate the stubborn joy of simple things, the way St. George’s quiet valor outshines noise. That same gentle firmness lives in The Holy Isle: A Legend of Bardsey Abbey — A Reader’s Guide, where faith feels like water finding its way through stone. Some books sit with you like an old friend’s hand on your shoulder.