My dad had an amazing memory for poems and one snippet has kept coming back to me recently: ‘goodness only knowses/The Noselessness of Man’. Googling it, I find that it belongs to a poem by G.K.Chesterton, some of which I have quoted below. Written from the perspective of a dog called Quoodle, the poem’s amusing and light-hearted approach actually packs a profound punch. Maybe this is a really famous poem that everyone knows, but it’s new to me and a discovery. It sets those two familiar lines in context, deepening them.
Google has served as Dad’s ‘hand from beyond’. Finding the poem feels like finding a bit of his voice.
The Song of Quoodle
They haven’t got no noses,
The fallen sons of Eve;
Even the smell of roses
Is not what they supposes;
But more than mind discloses
And more than men believe.
[...]
The brilliant smell of water,
The brave smell of a stone,
The smell of dew and thunder,
The old bones buried under,
Are things in which they blunder
And err, if left alone.
The wind from winter forests,
The scent of scentless flowers,
The breath of brides’ adorning,
The smell of snare and warning,
The smell of Sunday morning,
God gave to us for ours
* * *
And Quoodle here discloses
All things that Quoodle can,
They haven’t got no noses,
They haven’t got no noses,
And goodness only knowses
The Noselessness of Man.
