The New Omar

By Gilbert Keith Chesterton

A Book of verses underneath the bough,

 Provided that the verses do not scan,

A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and Thou,

 Short-haired, all angles, looking like a man.

But let the wine be unfermented, Pale,

 Of chemicals compounded, God knows how—

This were indeed the Prophet's Paradise,

 O Paradise were Wilderness enow.