This is a very odd poem, at least from my perspective, since normally I find G.K.Chesterton a perfectly clear writer but on this occasion I simply do not understand what he is trying to say. If it were by some modernist poet, for whom communication with the reader was not a priority, I would simply pass on, but Chesterton is not like that at all. And it has the feel to me of a powerful and eloquent poem, if only I had the key to it.

All I can offer by way of elucidation is that the cry of ‘Who goes home?’ is a tradition of the British parliament, being uttered simultaneously by two Doorkeepers (one behind the Speaker’s chair and one in Members’ lobby) when the House rises. This is often explained as an invitation to Members to join together in bands to cross what in the past were the dangerous unlit fields between Westminster and the City or to hire boats homeward on the Thames as a party in order to save the individual fares (the same may apply to taxis nowadays). 

The ‘city set upon slime and loam’ is thus obviously London. But what is the ‘city of graves’? Who are they who ‘shall perish and understand’? Understand what? Who are the ‘men that are men again’? Whose is the blood – that of those who die defending democracy?

As usual, any help from minds more perceptive than mine will be gratefully received.

Tocsin: an alarm bell or warning signal.

Who Goes Home?

In the city set upon slime and loam
They cry in their parliament ‘Who goes home?’
And there comes no answer in arch or dome,
For none in the city of graves goes home.
Yet these shall perish and understand,
For God has pity on this great land.

Men that are men again; who goes home?
Tocsin and trumpeter! Who goes home?
For there’s blood on the field and blood on the foam
And blood on the body when Man goes home.
And a voice valedictory . . . Who is for Victory?
Who is for Liberty? Who goes home?

G. K. Chesterton