The Hunting Of The Dragon
When we went hunting the Dragon
in the days when we were young,
we tossed the bright world over our shoulder
as bugle and baldrick slung;
never was world so wild and fair
as what went by on the wind,
never such fields of paradise
as the fields we left behind:
For this is the best of a rest for menFor men grow weary of fairyland
that men should rise and ride
making a flying fairyland
of market and country-side,
wings on the cottage, wings on the wood,
wings upon pot and pan,
for the hunting of the Dragon
that is the life of a man.
when the Dragon is a dream,
and tire of the talking bird in the tree,
the singing fish in the stream;
and the wandering stars grow stale, grow stale,
and the wonder is stiff with scorn;
for this is the honour of fairyland
and the following of the horn;
Beauty on beauty called us back
when we could rise and ride,
and a woman looked out of every window
as wonderful as a bride:
And the tavern-sign as a tabard blazed,
and the children cheered and ran,
for the love of the hate of the Dragon
that is the pride of a man.
The sages called him a shadow
and the light went out of the sun:
And the wise men told us that all was well
and all was weary and one:
And then, and then, in the quiet garden,
with never a weed to kill,
we knew that his shining tail had shone
in the white road over the hill:
we knew that the clouds were flakes of flame,
we knew that the sunset fire
was red with the blood of the Dragon
whose death is the world’s desire.
For the horn was blown in the heart of the night
that men should rise and ride,
keeping the tryst of a terrible jest
never for long untried;
drinking a dreadful blood for wine,
never in cup or can,
the death of a deathless Dragon,
that is the life of a man.
Pocas veces pasa. Casi nunca.
Pero alguna vez tenemos la fortuna de encontrarnos con un poema -uno solo- que nos habla a la vez de tantos asuntos que nos importan y nos duelen.
Y si vemos que lo hace con una hondura seria y fresca y una alegría inarrugable, ya es más que afortunado: es un signo de que hay en el mundo un talento descomunal que no sólo puede ver las espaldas de las cosas, sino verlas de frente.
Y a la vez es un regalo.
Un dragón.
La muerte de un Dragón inmortal: ésa es la vida de un hombre.
La guerra en las Islas Malvinas, la Patria de nuestros días, nuestra Fe, la vida en la Iglesia que nos tiene por hijos.
Y más cosas. Tantas y algunas tan hondas y grandes.
La muerte de un Dragón inmortal: ésa es la vida de un hombre.
Horizontes de fuego al atardecer del mundo, del Mundo, de nuestro mundo, que se tiñen de rojo con el rojo de la sangre de un Dragón, cuya muerte es el deseo del mundo. Del Mundo. Nuestro deseo.
Cuando fuimos a cazar al Dragón...
Fuimos. ¿Fuimos?
Vamos. ¿Vamos?
Ir a cazar al Dragón.
Tenemos que.
Ésa es la vida del hombre.
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El autor de The Hunting of the Dragon es G. K. Chesterton.
El poema fue publicado en 1922, en The Ballad of St. Barbara & Other Verses.