LEPANTO

brucelewis.com ^ | 2008.10.07 | Bruce Lewis

[B-Chan]

Commemorating the 437th anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto.

[Rummyfan]

A great vicotry for Christian Europe over the Turks. Well documented by Victor Davis Hansen in his book Carnage and Culture.

[sockmonkey]

Thanks for posting this. I love Chesterton.

[Byron_the_Aussie]

Two thumbs up for the greatest verse ever written.

[B-Chan]

The author of this poem is, of course, G.K. Chesterton. Sorry I left that off, everybody!

[ccmay]

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

[stripes1776]

Thanks for posting this. I love Chesterton.

I love Chesterton too, but I have never read any of his poetry. What is this from?

[ccmay]

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 she that saith not 'Kismet'; it is she that knows not Fate;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate!
It is she whose loss is laughter when she counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon her, that our peace be on the earth."
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
(Doña Sara of Alaska is going to the war.)

[lentulusgracchus]

I wondered who it was. It seemed like a translation from Spanish or Italian, written 300-400 years ago.

But then, perhaps Chesterton intended it to read that way.

Thanks for posting it. Now I can say I've read Chesterton!

[wardaddy]

i knew you posted this before I looked

as we used to say

Bump.

to a battle that ranks with Thermopylae and the sinking of the Spanish Armada as pivotal for our culture

[baa39]

Try “The Man Who Was Thursday” next....(novella).

[baa39]

Thanks be to the Holy Mother of God whose intercession secured the Christian victory and stayed off the enemy for 400 years. Now we are at war again.

Our Lady of Lepanto, pray for us.
Our Lady of Victory, pray for us.
Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, pray for us.

(And October 7 is also my birthday, so spare me any anti-Catholic flames, thanks.)

[neb52]

Happy Birthday! :D

[GOP Poet]

bookmark

[happinesswithoutpeace]

All things in time, sir.

Also,

Have some Emerson.

“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream that seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deeds redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.”

[Jimmy Valentine]

Thanks for that! Lepanto was a very narrow run thing,and without Don Juan of Austria leading the fight and willing to risk all on one great throw of the dice, who know what the outcome would have been.

To hold together an under financed coalition of fractious people with disparate national interests was something.

Great poem; never read it before!

[LS]

Just a few years before, the Christians at Malta defeated a massive Ottoman invasion force, too. Doesn’t get the same “ink” as Lepanto, but given the odds, it was an even more impressive victory.

[neb52]

Lepanto gets the ink, because it was the finality, the exclamation mark and the point of decline for the Turks. There was also an invasion force into Hungry that got chewed up during a drawn out siege at this time.

[Pyro7480]

Could I use this graphic on my blog?

[ArrogantBustard]

Brilliant commemoration of an earlier battle in the War on Islamic Terrorism.