"Lepanto" is one of the most rousing of modern ballad
narratives.- Anticipating Vachel Lindsay's "The Congo" and other chants of modern
poetry,
Chesterton retells the story of the Crusaders under the leadership of Don John, who
commanded the combined Christian navies in 1571 and broke the
power of the Turks; he revivifies the details, changing them from
dry historical data into drama. The syllables beat as though on
brass; the armies sing, the feet tramp, the drums snarl, and-the
tides of marching Crusaders roll resonantly out of the lines. No
discussion of Chesterton would be complete without a tribute to
his epigrammatic power. "The Donkey"
and "Elegy in a Country Churchyard"
are noteworthy examples of such condensation. As a politician
and paradoxical essayist, Chesterton will have an interest for
future critics, but Chesterton the poet will outlive his period.
LepantoWhite founts falling in the Courts of the sun,And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run; There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard; It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips; For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships. They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy, They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea, And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony- and loss, And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the The cold queen of England is looking in the glass; The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass; From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun, And the Lord upon the Golden Horn 2 is laughing in the sun. Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard, Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall, The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall. The last lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung, That once went singing southward when all the world was In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid, Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade. Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far, Don John of Austria is going to the war, Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold; Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums, Then the tuckets,l then the trumpets, then the cannon, and Don John laughing in the brave beard curled, Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world, Holding his head up for a flag of all the free. Love-light of Spain - hurrah! Death-light of Africa! Don John of Austria Is riding to the sea. Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star, (Don John of Austria is going to the war.) He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri's knees, His turban that is woven of the sunsets and the seas. He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease, And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to Black Az-rael and Ariel and Ammon 3 on the wing. Giants and the Genii, Mutiplex of wing and eye, Whose strong obedience broke the sky When Solomon was king. They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the From the temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be, On them the sea-valves cluster and the gray sea-forests curl, Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl; They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,- They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound. And he saith, " Break up the mountains where the hermit- And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide, And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest, For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west. We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun, Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done. But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know The voice that shook our palaces - four hundred years ago: It is he that saith not 'Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate; It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate! It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar, (Don John of Austria is going to the war.) Sudden and still - hurrah! Bolt from Iberia! Don John of Austria Is gone by Alcalar. St. Michael's on his Mountain in the sea-roads of the north (Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.) Where the gray seas glitter and the sharp tides shift And the sea-folk labor and the red sails lift. He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone; The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes, And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise, And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room, And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee, But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea. Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips, Trumpet that sayeth ha! Don John of Austria Is shouting to the ships. The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke, (Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.) The hidden room in man's house where God sits all the year, The secret window whence the world looks small and very He sees as in a mirror o n the monstrous twilight sea The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery; They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and They veil the plumed lions on the galleys of St. Mark; And above the ships are palaces of crown, black-bearded And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous Christian captives sick and sunless, all a laboring race repines Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines. They are lost like slaves that swat,' and in the skies of morn- The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young. They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or Before the high Kings' horses in the granite of Babylon. And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a (But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!) Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop, Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop, Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds, Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds, Thronging of the thousands up that labor under sea White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty. Vivat Hispania! Domino Gloria! Don John of Austria Has set his people free! Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath (Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.) And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain, Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain, And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the (But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.) |