The Battle of Lepanto

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

[Cicero]

St. Michaels 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 for ever 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.)

[fortitude]

Beautiful, Cicero. But don't forget that it was through the the recitation of the Most Holy Rosary and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary that this battle was won against all possible odds.

By the way, today (Oct.7) is the Feastday of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I'm urging all Catholics to please pray the Rosary for the defeat of the infidals and the safe return of our armed forces.

[Dumb_Ox]

One of my favorite poems. I'm sending it off to a Navy friend now.

[Miss Marple]

Here is another literary allusion I thought you might appreciate. Interesting that this is the date.

[Goetz_von_Berlichingen]

Deus vult!

[Cicero]

Thank you. I hadn't clicked on the date. But of course you are right that the fleet, mostly Venetian, was put under the protection of Our Lady.

Some Freepers have commented on another convergence of dates: that the national memorial service for the victims in Washington took place on the Feast commemorating the Victory of the Cross.

[Cicero]

Yes, I think I've read most of Chesterton, except for his many newspaper columns.

I especially like Orthodoxy, The Man Who was Thursday, The Battle of Notting Hill, and the Everlasting Man. Also his great biographies of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis of Asisi.

[Cicero]

I see by your name that you must be a Chesterton fan.

[jrherreid]

Megabump.

A dead thing can go with the stream; only a living thing can go against it. --G.K. Chesterton

[Goetz_von_Berlichingen]

Have you read The Flying Inn?
It's about an attempted Islamic invasion of England.

[LibKill]

KILL!

KILL!

BLOOD MAKES THE GRASS GROW!

USMC marching chant, circa 1980.

[B-Chan]

[wildandcrazyrussian]

I couldn't read all the captions under the flags on the sign, but you might consider adding a three-bar cross representing Eastern Orthodox Christians, since our ancestors have had to deal with Muslim expansionism for over 1,300 years already, and knew firsthand the terror and death that awaited those who fell into the black hole of Islamic conquest.

[ArrogantBustard]

The Cross Golden on Field Scarlet is labeled "Orthodox". I can, just, read in on my 21" monitor. FWIW.

AB

[wildandcrazyrussian]

Thanks. If you know who constructed it, I wil send them a note to make the captions a bit bigger. I can't help but think that as this war spreads, it is going to be Christians (and Jews) in Asia and Africa who are going to bear the brunt of local "retaliatory" missions by Muslims.

[B-Chan]

The scarlet banner (second from right) bears the Chi-Rho cross and the caption "Orthodoxy." I'll make the graphic a bit bigger so it'll be more easily read. Sorry for the confusion.

[B-Chan]

Oops. The Ch-Rho flag is obviously the second one from the left, not the right. Bear with me -- it's Monday...

[wardaddy]

Nice image B-Chan. My sentiments exactly.

on a related note,has anyone commented on Usama's right hand man's words in the tape released yesterday regarding "We will not allow another Spain to happen"

I have seen no one in our media pick up on this at all. It's not really suprising I suppose but I still find it amazing that these folks are seriously still harboring a serious grudge over Islam being driven out of the Iberian penninsula some 609 years ago. Until this recent tragedy I never realized what a debt we owe to Ferdinand and Isabella.

God bless.