White 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 feared,
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 Cross,
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 is laughing in the sun.
Dim drums
throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a
nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from
a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last knight
of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and
lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went
singing southward when all the world was young,
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 night-blasts cold
In the gloom
black-purple, in the glint old-gold.
Torchlight
crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets,
then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
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 sunset 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 trees,
And his voice
through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and
Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the
Genii,
Multiplex 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 morn,
From temples
where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
They rise in
green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea
Where fallen
skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be;
On them the
sea-valves cluster and the grey 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-folk can hide,
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 worth,
Put down your
feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.'
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 grey
seas glitter and the sharp tides shift
And the sea-folk
labour 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 alone;
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 doom,
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!
Domino gloria!
Don John of
Austria
Is shouting to
the ships.
King Philip's in
his closet with the Fleece about his neck
(Don John of
Austria is armed upon the deck.)
The walls are
hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
And little dwarfs
creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
He holds a
crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
He touches, and
it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
And his face is
as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
Like plants in
the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
And death is in
the phial, and the end of noble work,
But Don John of
Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John's
hunting, and his hounds have bayed -
Booms away past
Italy the rumour of his raid.
Gun upon gun, ha!
ha!
Gun upon gun,
hurrah!
Don John of
Austria
Has loosed the
cannonade.
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 dear.
He sees as in a
mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
The crescent of
his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
They fling great
shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
They veil the
plumèd lions on the galleys of St Mark;
And above the
ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
And below the
ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
Christian
captives, sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
Like a race in
sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
They are lost
like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung
The stair-ways of
the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
They are
countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on
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 cell,
And he finds his
God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign -
(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 labour 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 blade...
(But Don John of
Austria rides home from the Crusade.)
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