#22 By The Babe Unborn (G. K. Chesterton)

Ayer fue la tradicional "Marcha por la vida" en Washington. Allí estuvimos, nuevamente, con la esperanza de que sea la última. Quizá es la primera vez en que la esperanza ha sido un poco más tangible, el cumplimiento más cercano. Ya es hora: Los derechos humanos comienzan cuando comienza una vida humana. 

Esta marcha es protesta pero es también una celebración de toda vida, un recordatorio de que toda vida importa. Y para continuar con la celebración, qué mejor invitado que Chesterton. El poema es claro como el agua, pero se lee estupendamente junto a uno de sus artículos, que es donde Chesterton se luce siempre más. En (guiño, guiño) "A Defence of Baby-Worship" dice: 

"The fascination of children lies in this: that with each of them all things are remade, and the universe is put again upon its trial. As we walk the streets and see below us those delightful bulbous heads, three times too big for the body, which mark these human mushrooms, we ought always primarily to remember that within every one of these heads there is a new universe, as new as it was on the seventh day of creation. In each of those orbs there is a new system of stars, new grass, new cities, a new sea."

El poema es la segunda versión, de 1897. 

(via)

BY THE BABE UNBORN

If trees were tall and grasses short,
As in some crazy tale,
If here and there a sea were blue
Beyond the breaking pale,

If a fixed fire hung in the air
To warm me one day through,
If deep green hair grew on great hills,
I know what I should do.

In dark I lie: dreaming that there
Are great eyes cold or kind,
And twisted streets and silent doors,
And living men behind.

Let storm-clouds come: better an hour,
And leave to weep and fight,
Than all the ages I have ruled
The empires of the night.

I think that if they gave me leave
Within that world to stand,
I would be good through all the day
I spent in fairyland.

They should not hear a word from me
Of selfishness or scorn,
If only I could find the door,
If only I were born.