XXVII

Are you the end, Despair, or the poor least
Of them that cast great shadows and are lies T
That dread the simple and destroy the wise,

Fail at the tomb and triumph at the feast ?

You were not found on Olivet, dull beast,
Nor in Thebaid, when the night’s agonies
Dissolved to glory on the effulgent east

And Jesus Christ was in the morning skies.

You did not curb the indomitable crest
Of Tzerna-Gora, when the Falcon-bred
Screamed over the Adriatic, and their Lord
Went riding out, much angrier than the rest,
To summon at ban the living and the dead
And break the Mahommedan with the repeated sword.

Hilaire Belloc