White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
\nAnd the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
\nThere is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
\nIt stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
\nIt curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
\nFor the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
\nThey have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
\nThey have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
\nAnd the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
\nAnd called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,
\nThe cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
\nThe shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
\nFrom evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
\nAnd the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.<\/p>\n
Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
\nWhere only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
\nWhere, risen from a doubtful seat and half-attainted stall,
\nThe last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
\nThe last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
\nThat once went singing southward when all the world was young.
\nIn that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
\nComes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
\nStrong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
\nDon John of Austria is going to the war,
\nStiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
\nIn the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
\nTorchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
\nThen the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
\nDon John laughing in the brave beard curled,
\nSpurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
\nHolding his head up for a flag of all the free.
\nLove-light of Spain – hurrah!
\nDeath-light of Africa!
\nDon John of Austria
\nIs riding to the sea.<\/p>\n
Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star, They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn, St. Michael’s on his Mountain in the sea-roads of the north King Philip’s in his closet with the Fleece about his neck The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke, They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath (But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade<\/em>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chesterton’s masterpiece, an amazing piece of history and poetry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[613,614,418],"class_list":["post-6409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-poet","tag-cervantes","tag-don-juan-of-austria","tag-lepanto"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n(Don John of Austria is going to the war<\/em>.)
\nHe moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri’s knees,
\nHis turban that is woven of the sunset and the seas.
\nHe shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,
\nAnd he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees,
\nAnd his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
\nBlack Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
\nGiants and the Genii,
\nMultiplex of wing and eye,
\nWhose strong obedience broke the sky
\nWhen Solomon was king.<\/p>\n
\nFrom temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
\nThey rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea
\nWhere fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be;
\nOn them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,
\nSplashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;
\nThey swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground, –
\nThey gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.
\nAnd he saith, “Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk may hide,
\nAnd sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
\nAnd chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
\nFor that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
\nWe have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,
\nOf knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done,
\nBut a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
\nThe voice that shook our palaces – four hundred years ago:
\nIt is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not Fate;
\nIt is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate!
\nIt is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
\nPut down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.”
\nFor he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
\n(Don John of Austria is going to the war<\/em>.)
\nSudden and still – hurrah!
\nBolt from Iberia!
\nDon John of Austria
\nIs gone by Alcalar.<\/p>\n
\n(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth<\/em>.)
\nWhere the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift
\nAnd the sea-folk labour and the red sails lift.
\nHe shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;
\nThe noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;
\nThe North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes
\nAnd dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
\nAnd Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
\nAnd Christian dreadeth Christ that bath a newer face of doom,
\nAnd Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,
\nBut Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.
\nDon John calling through the blast and the eclipse
\nCrying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,
\nTrumpet that sayeth ha!
\nDomino gloria<\/em>!
\nDon John of Austria
\nIs shouting to the ships.<\/p>\n
\n(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck<\/em>.)
\nThe walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
\nAnd little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
\nHe holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
\nHe touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
\nAnd his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
\nLike plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
\nAnd death is in the phial and the end of noble work,
\nBut Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
\nDon John’s hunting, and his hounds have bayed –
\nBooms away past Italy the rumour of his raid.
\nGun upon gun, ha! ha!
\nGun upon gun, hurrah!
\nDon John of Austria
\nHas loosed the cannonade.<\/p>\n
\n(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke<\/em>.)
\nThe hidden room in a man’s house where God sits all the year,
\nThe secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
\nHe sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
\nThe crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
\nThey fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
\nThey veil the plumed lions on the galleys of St. Mark;
\nAnd above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
\nAnd below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
\nChristian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
\nLike a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
\nThey are lost like slaves that swat, and in the skies of morning hung
\nThe stairways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.<\/p>\n
\nBefore the high Kings’ horses in the granite of Babylon.
\nAnd many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell
\nWhere a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,
\nAnd he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign –
\n(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!<\/em>)
\nDon John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
\nPurpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate’s sloop,
\nScarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
\nBreaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
\nThronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
\nWhite for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
\nVivat Hispania<\/em>!
\nDomino Gloria<\/em>!
\nDon John of Austria
\nHas set his people free!<\/p>\n
\n(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath<\/em>.)
\nAnd he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,
\nUp which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain,
\nAnd he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade. . .<\/p>\n