{"id":25164,"date":"2014-04-15T06:30:34","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T18:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=25164"},"modified":"2014-04-12T19:12:01","modified_gmt":"2014-04-12T07:12:01","slug":"tuesday-poem-lepanto-by-gk-chesterton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2014\/04\/15\/tuesday-poem-lepanto-by-gk-chesterton\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Poem: “Lepanto” by GK Chesterton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lepanto<\/h3>\n
White founts falling in the courts of the sun,<\/div>\n
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;<\/div>\n
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,<\/div>\n
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,<\/div>\n
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,<\/div>\n
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.<\/div>\n
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,<\/div>\n
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,<\/div>\n
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,<\/div>\n
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,<\/div>\n
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;<\/div>\n
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;<\/div>\n
From evening isles fantastical, rings faint the Spanish gun,<\/div>\n
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
\n.<\/span><\/div>\n
Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,<\/div>\n
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,<\/div>\n
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,<\/div>\n
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,<\/div>\n
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,<\/div>\n
That once went singing southward when all the world was young,<\/div>\n
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,<\/div>\n
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.<\/div>\n
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,<\/div>\n
Don John of Austria is going to the war,<\/div>\n
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold<\/div>\n
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,<\/div>\n
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,<\/div>\n
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.<\/div>\n
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,<\/div>\n
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,<\/div>\n
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.<\/div>\n
Love-light of Spain\u2014hurrah!<\/div>\n
Death-light of Africa!<\/div>\n
Don John of Austria<\/div>\n
Is riding to the sea.
\n.<\/span><\/div>\n
Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,<\/div>\n
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.<\/em>)<\/div>\n
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri\u2019s knees,<\/div>\n
His turban that is woven of the sunset and the seas.<\/div>\n
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,<\/div>\n
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees,<\/div>\n
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring<\/div>\n
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.<\/div>\n
Giants and the Genii,<\/div>\n
Multiplex of wing and eye,<\/div>\n
Whose strong obedience broke the sky<\/div>\n
When Solomon was king.
\n.<\/span><\/div>\n
They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,<\/div>\n
From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;<\/div>\n
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea<\/div>\n
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be;<\/div>\n
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,<\/div>\n
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;<\/div>\n
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,\u2014<\/div>\n
They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.<\/div>\n
And he saith, \u201cBreak up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,<\/div>\n
And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,<\/div>\n
And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,<\/div>\n
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.<\/div>\n
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,<\/div>\n
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done,<\/div>\n
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know<\/div>\n
The voice that shook our palaces\u2014four hundred years ago:<\/div>\n
It is he that saith not \u2018Kismet\u2019; it is he that knows not Fate ;<\/div>\n
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate!<\/div>\n
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,<\/div>\n
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.\u201d<\/div>\n
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,<\/div>\n
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.<\/em>)<\/div>\n
Sudden and still\u2014hurrah!<\/div>\n
Bolt from Iberia!<\/div>\n
Don John of Austria<\/div>\n
Is gone by Alcalar.
\n.<\/span><\/div>\n
St. Michael\u2019s on his mountain in the sea-roads of the north<\/div>\n
(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.<\/em>)<\/div>\n
Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift<\/div>\n
And the sea folk labour and the red sails lift.<\/div>\n
He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;<\/div>\n
The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;<\/div>\n
The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes<\/div>\n
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,<\/div>\n
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,<\/div>\n
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,<\/div>\n
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,<\/div>\n
But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.<\/div>\n
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse<\/div>\n
Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,<\/div>\n
Trumpet that sayeth ha!<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Domino gloria! <\/em><\/div>\n
Don John of Austria<\/div>\n
Is shouting to the ships.
\n.<\/span><\/div>\n
King Philip\u2019s in his closet with the Fleece about his neck<\/div>\n
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.<\/em>)<\/div>\n
The walls are hung with velvet, that is black and soft as sin,<\/div>\n
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.<\/div>\n
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,<\/div>\n
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,<\/div>\n
And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey<\/div>\n
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,<\/div>\n
And death is in the phial, and the end of noble work,<\/div>\n
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.<\/div>\n
Don John\u2019s hunting, and his hounds have bayed\u2014<\/div>\n
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid<\/div>\n
Gun upon gun, ha! ha!<\/div>\n
Gun upon gun, hurrah!<\/div>\n
Don John of Austria<\/div>\n
Has loosed the cannonade.
\n.<\/span><\/div>\n
The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,<\/div>\n
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.<\/em>)<\/div>\n
The hidden room in man\u2019s house where God sits all the year,<\/div>\n
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.<\/div>\n
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea<\/div>\n
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;<\/div>\n
They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,<\/div>\n
They veil the plum\u00e8d lions on the galleys of St. Mark;<\/div>\n
And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,<\/div>\n
And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,<\/div>\n
Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines<\/div>\n
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.<\/div>\n
They are lost like slaves that swat, and in the skies of morning hung<\/div>\n
The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.<\/div>\n
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on<\/div>\n
Before the high Kings\u2019 horses in the granite of Babylon.<\/div>\n
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell<\/div>\n
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,<\/div>\n
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign\u2014<\/div>\n
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!<\/em>)<\/div>\n
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,<\/div>\n
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate\u2019s sloop,<\/div>\n
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,<\/div>\n
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,<\/div>\n
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea<\/div>\n
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.<\/div>\n
Vivat Hispania! <\/em><\/div>\n
Domino Gloria!<\/div>\n
Don John of Austria<\/div>\n
Has set his people free!
\n.<\/span><\/div>\n
Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath<\/div>\n
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.<\/em>)<\/div>\n
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,<\/div>\n
Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain,<\/div>\n
And he smiles, but not as Sultan’s smile, and settles back the blade….<\/div>\n
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.<\/em>)
\n.<\/span>
\nby<\/em> GK Chesterton
\n.<\/span>
\nSource: The Collected Poems of G. K. Chesterton<\/em> (1927); Poetry Foundation<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

About The Poem:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

First written in 1911 and published during World War 1, I am aware that this rousing ballad is probably not a politically correct choice in this day and age — but I loved it as a kid, not least for the rich, rolling language, vivid visual images, and epic-heroic style.<\/p>\n

Later, curiosity about the battle of Lepanto and Don John of Austria led me to read in some depth on the history of the period. More recently, I was reading material on the life of Miguel Cervantes, author of Don Quixote<\/em><\/strong>, who served at the battle of Lepanto — which is the reference at the end of the poem and led to the decision to feature the ballad of a Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Critic, Joseph John Reilly (“Chesterton as poet”, Of Books and Men<\/em>, Ayer Publishing, 1968) said:\u00a0 “…In Lepanto, Chesterton reveals all his poetic gifts at their best: rhetoric in the high sense … music almost as rich as Tennyson’s, varied by a chant in which the tread of marchin<\/em>g men lives again; color varied and brilliant with the splendor of the East.”<\/em> Reilly also notes the way that Chesterton relieves the martial vigour of the poem with contrasting lines that are soft and quiet. (Source: Wikipedia.)
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

About The Poet:<\/h3>\n

You can read a full biography of Chesterton on the Poetry Foundation site: GK Chesterton<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lepanto 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25164"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25184,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25164\/revisions\/25184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}