_In desert march or battles flame, In fortress and in field, Our war-cry is thy holy name, Thy love our joy and shield! And if we falter, let thy power Thy stern avenger be, And God forget us in the hour We cease to think of thee!_
Curse me not, God of Justice and of Love! Pitiful God, let my long woe atone!
I cannot deem but God has pitied me; Else why with painful care have I been saved, Whenever tossed and drenched in the fierce tide Of Saladin's victories by the walls profaned Of Jaffa, on the sands of far Daroum, Or in the battle thundering on the downs Of Ramlah, or the bloody day that shed Red horrors on high Gaza's parapets? For never a storm of fatal fight has raged In Islam's track of rout and ruin swept From Egypt to Gebail, but when the ebb Of battle came I and my host have lain, Scarred, scorched, safe somewhere on its fiery shore. At Marcab's lingering siege, where day by day We told the Moslem legions toiling slow, Planting their engines, delving in their mines To quench in our destruction this last light Of Christendom, our fortress in the crags, God's beacon swung defiant from the stars; One thunderous night I knew their miners groped Below, and thought ere morn to die, in crush And tumult of the falling citadel. And pondering of my fate--the broken storm Sobbing its life away--I was aware There grew between me and the quieting skies A face and form I knew,--not as in dreams, The sad dishevelled loveliness of earth, But lighter than the thin air where she swayed,-- Gold hair flame-fluttered, eyes and mouth aglow With lambent light of spiritual joy. With sweet command she beckoned me away And led me vaguely dreaming, till I saw Where the wild flood in sudden fury had burst A passage through the rocks: and thence I led My host unharmed, following her luminous eyes, Until the East was gray, and with a smile Wooing me heavenward still she passed away Into the rosy trouble of the dawn.
And I believe my love is shrived in heaven, And I believe that I shall soon be free.
For ever, as I journey on, to me Waking or sleeping come faint whisperings And fancies not of earth, as if the gates Of near eternity stood for me ajar, And ghostly gales come blowing o'er my soul Fraught with the amaranth odors of the skies. I go to join the Lion-Heart at Acre, And there, after due homage to my liege, And after patient penance of the church, And after final devoir in the fight, If that my God be gracious, I shall die. And so I pray--Lord pardon if I sin!-- That I may lose in death's imbittered wave, The stain of sinful loving, and may find In glory again the love I lost below, With all of fair and bright and unattained, Beautiful in the cherishing smile of God, By the glad waters of the River of Life!