SOURCE: "The Poetry," in Hilaire Belloc, Twayne Publishers, 1982, pp. 24-53.

In the following essay, Markel discusses the defining characteristics of Belloc's poetry.

During a writing career of more than forty-five years, Hilaire Belloc turned out almost one hundred and fifty prose works. With only a handful of exceptions, writing these books was an enormous chore for him, what one commentator calls his "sad campaign for a livelihood." Belloc's aggressive and domineering personality prevented him from long remaining anyone's employee, so he turned his antipathy for socialists, atheists, and Darwinians into a lifelong vocation.

But Belloc's real love remained his poetry. What he wished to be remembered for is collected in a slim volume called Complete Verse. Had circumstances been otherwise, he probably would have written ten volumes of poetry and very little else. Whereas the subject of his prose was the struggle of men in the world, their...