Part 6

Even monks planned theft of saintly scalps; stray hairs and chips of nail and chine, Divinely shielded through the Alps, would make the fortune of the Rhine.

I often tried to hide myself from this besetting spook of pelf. In olive-groves I called in vain to simple faun and acorn-elf.

I pictured kine that kissed their own reflections on the impulsive Rhone, A little maid with sunflower hair, a nest we found ... the birds had flown.

I think Alexius was wise to keep us out. Our hungry eyes Fixed on his capital. Why go farther when here were rich supplies?

The Pope that cursed our tastes had laid the hand of blessing on this raid. Blest chance indeed--as though a man should drink his fill and then be paid!

Each set to whet his falchion-pet that only friends had tasted yet. We dressed our hopes in purple silk, wallowed in dreamland's wine and milk.

Yet more than any Sultan's spoil fair women should repay our toil. Already some were filled with thoughts that our red cross was meant to foil.

The notion twinged us. We compared our prospects with the way we fared On these lean suburbs and the flats about Barbyses. We were snared!

The very Greeks, whose prayers had lured us into this adventure, lodged Their saviours in a baited trap. Lord, how these foxes turned and dodged.

There lay our army like a log; our camp, our tenets, turned to bog. We sank. Disorder brought disease that stalked us spectral through the fog.

The Greeks we came to bolster up against their weakness filled our cup With turpitude; the Byzantine put Circe's poison in our wine.

Our aspirations all became mean as our hosts; the inner flame Went out. From many a starting-point we found a common ground in shame;

For here no soul can keep its health, but cat-like honour creeps by stealth Down side streets where the children breathe an atmosphere of rotting wealth.

Between our fellow-churches rose the hate that heaven had meant for foes.... The infidel might well have laughed. Perhaps he did. We came to blows.

And I was sad that Christians had nothing in common, saving bad Blood, that our highest dizziest heads could all divide but none could add.

But when spring lit the Judas-trees our chieftains kissed the Emperor's knees. We crossed to Asia sick at heart. Alexius kept us well apart,

Shuffling us o'er the Bosphorus. The number and the rank of us Exceeded those who went to Troy for Helen the Adulterous.

On the Bithynian plain our force drew up: an hundred thousand horse With foot and monks and womankind in crowds that none can call to mind.

Fear stuffed the empty space ahead with devils and the shapes of dread That decked our church. A ghastly rush of loneliness made every head

Feel like a pinpoint. Discontent ran through the score of nations blent In cries. Their ribald spokesman forced a drunkard's way to Godfrey's tent:

_You that have led us through the many tests Of Hungary, King Caloman, and Thrace, Who think of kingdoms as of palimpsests And human nature as a carapace, Go up and prosper in your lofty chase! We cannot live on barren mountain-crests. Our wildest dreams are prisoners that pace The little space between a woman's breasts._

_Here lies the stronghold that our zeal invests, This infidel alone we long to face. This hollow, where our constant fancy nests, Is more to us than pedestal and dais. Nay, we will go no farther in the race For gain, respond no more to mean behests. We know our cause, and reverently embrace The little space between a woman's breasts._

_It is our holy land, and we, the guests Of passion, brand all other hosts as base. The bees have led us to their treasure-chests, A foxglove-sceptre and an hyacinth-mace, The meadow's fleeting broidery and lace. Their heaven like ours is nigh to vulgar jests. A blossom's goal and glory is to grace The little space between a woman's breasts._

_Prince, be content and choose your resting-place, Ere we be all forgotten with our quests, And this thin earth go crumbling into space, The little space between a woman's breasts._

Thereat was scandal, and a priest exclaimed that man was half a beast. I could have told him that before. Man was the half I like the least.

To obviate a sinful fate the monks laid on us many weeks Of penance, wasting us the more with these inventions of the Greeks.

Some paid in cash, some chose the lash--their backs were pitiful to see-- While Bishop Adhémar of Puy recited magic formulæ

That lurched us forward to our doom. We cleft the sultanate of Roum, Calling for bread. The peasants fled. We swept the country like a broom.

Our armed migration choked the road. It ran ahead, a stream that flowed Uphill to glory, so it seemed; and so imagination strode--

O Jack o' lantern!--into the unknown. The Virgin on a silver throne, Our leaders swore, went on before us. I saw nothing but the Rhone,

The impulsive Rhone that tumbles down, and breaks clean through the grey-walled town. I heard it rustle in its bed where others heard the Virgin's gown.

I blamed the foeman for my thirst, for sandstorm, flies, heat, scurvy--cursed Them. Piles of grievance fumed until the red fire kindled. Madness burst

All bounds, and capered in the glare that wrapped us round like Nessus' shirt. Each day 'twas there with yards to spare, and would not tear. How blue can hurt!

In my delirium I smelt a mirage, heard the swallows skim Above the reeds where angels knelt with envious eyes to watch me swim.

The preacher said Jehovah's cloud and pillar would go with us. Yea, The sky was on our heads alway. The sun rose up and cried aloud,

And stood immobilized at noon. We wondered if at Ajalon The Jews thanked Joshua for the boon of this divine phenomenon.

We came to Nice and formed a siege with tortoise, belfry, catapult, And curse that brought even less result. Each lordling quarrelled with his liege,

Layman with priest, until the place surrendered, and again we lurched Forward. I heard our name was made. I only saw how it was smirched.

My master clasped a small, soiled glove, and promised deeds for love's sweet sake That took my breath, as though his death would please The Burr. I lay awake

All night afraid to cry for fright. I tried my best to be full-grown, A child now loth to be alone. My misery was all my own.

I well recall our knights' first charge. It was as though a loaded barge Should seek to crush a dancing skiff. The foe was small, the plain was large.

Our men returned with horses spent. It seemed the Turkish cowards meant To harry, not oppose. Sometimes we caught them full, and down they went.

Strange that within so short a space I felt the strong effects of grace! The preaching man upon his ass called it a miracle. It was.

I, polishing my master's helmet, also longed to overwhelm The miscreants, to hew in bits the devil and his earthly realm.

A boy's high spirits, weariness, a heart impulsive as the Rhone, The wish to get this business done, the thought of little Sunflower-tress--

A flower beside The Burr, and "Why, if knights sing rubbish, should not I?"-- The preaching man's persistence, these stirred me to action by degrees.

We had our fill at Dorylæum. Our rogues were Paladins. We won, And weighed our booty by the ton. That night we chanted a Te Deum,

A myriad voices in the dark; they rose like one colossal lark Ere dawn. My soul flew up with them to see the new Jerusalem

And spite my tutor. I was mad to be a fighting-man, would pad My arms like muscles. So my lord took me to foray. I was glad.

I had one thought: my hands were wet. That angered me: my mouth was dry. I had one fear: I might forget my master's silly battle-cry.

Belike 'twas well no foe would stand--our cavaliers were out of hand-- So I was baulked. With scarce a blow we filed across the wasted land

For leagues, till Baldwin turned aside, and out of Peradventure carved His slice, Edessa. We were plied to march on Antioch half-starved.

For seven months sheer courage toiled to take the town. Its ramparts foiled Our engines. Sulkiness sat down within us, and temptation coiled

Tight round our bodies; every vice was lurking like a cockatrice. Ah, flesh can never quite repel the sinuous things which thoughts entice.

You honey-coloured Syrian girls, whose voices turned our knights to thirls, I looked away and stopped my ears by thinking of the glossier merles

At home. The arm upheld by Hur had not sufficed him to deter The dissipation of our force, alas. My lord deceived The Burr.

'Twas worse when treachery let us in. Blood, lechery, pillage, fire and din Burned an impression on my mind: the sexual ugliness of sin.

Cool Bohemond called Antioch his. Ere we had killed our mutineers, We the besiegers were besieged by Kurbugha and his Amírs.

Alternate famine and carouse brought plague; but doubtless God allows Expensive trials of faith that we might learn the magic formulæ.

We melted, melted; kites were fed upon us, dogs ran dripping red From piles of nameless carrion, the race that Europe might have bred.

Throughout our ranks desertion raged by daily sermons unassuaged. The preaching man was first in this "rope-dancing." Disillusion aged

My youth by years. My master stayed. If he had erred he promptly paid. The pestilence ran after him. Despite the fervour I displayed

He died of sores, this prince of tilt, though guarded by ten hallowed charms, This subject of all _trouvère_-lilt, lord in an hundred ladies' arms.

Oh, how I struggled to be brave when the Pope's legate, grey and grim, Said simply this beside the grave: "Christ died for you. You died for Him."

Only his jester seemed to care, and ceased awhile to swear and daff. "Who," he repeated in despair, "will pay me for his epitaph?"

_Poor friend, this alien hungry land Has closed her lips upon her prey. The tree is spoiled into her hand; She sucks the brook's thin veins away._

_A sterner voice than bade you come To reap the tears that exiles sow Has called you to her longer home, That neither bids nor lets you go._

_Seven times you baulked her lawless laws, And foiled the customs of the year; But Death defends the tyrant's cause, And makes the silent court his lair._

_The lease of life, that none can own, Is written on her agent's roll; And from the desert and the sown He takes a harsh and equal toll,_

_High-handed, scorning code or text. No hope the debtor's gaol unlocks. A friend appeals? He is the next To occupy the narrow box._

_The witness cowers, pale with fear, When Death the stalker passes by; And only prays he may not hear That ugly sound--a victim's cry._

_One weeps; his eyes are wet as long As on Death's hand the blood is wet. He says: "The King can do no wrong!" And craves permission to forget._

_How briefly to an echo clings The memory of these solemn days, The thought of those tremendous things That Death implies but never says._

_An hour ago we laid you down. The tender, tardy autumn rain Is dried within the dusty town, And we are at our rounds again._

With every round our spirits sank in bodies lean and members lank. I saw the soul of man, a cave, a wick that smouldered and smelled rank.

Men's fluid facts may wash the grime from pictures of a distant time, But I can paint the truth in one small touch: our poets ceased to rhyme.

Such was the army's hopelessness. I understood, who once had seen Our fading gardener rouse himself to kick and curse the wolf-cub, Life.

I would not let my feet desert, but oh the woods--the woods of home That bent and beckoned in the damp zephyr in vain! I could not stoop

To play false in an enterprise however mad, if once begun. Besides another miracle was wrought in me. I was in love.

I was enamoured of dear Christ; His utter beauty struck me dumb, His face alone could compensate for scenes that almost made me long

For blindness. Yea, to Him I turned from all this heartache, nightly kissed His hand with passion. I at least would not betray the children's Friend.

Haply His strength has always lain in contrast. I found strength to press Toward the mark. Not so the host: we could not kick it to its feet.

Then heaven inspired us to devise a pious fraud--The Holy Lance. We hid it in Saint Peter's crypt, and dug it up. The people wept

With rapture at this talisman, and sang the Psalm "Let God arise." Also our chiefs--they knew my zeal--bade me complete the heartening sign.

White-plumed, white-horsed, with golden shield and halo, I contrived to appear On the horizon, waved my sword while Adhémar proclaimed Saint George.

Our men responded with a shout. Through the five gates they tumbled out, An headlong torrent. In a trice the infidel was put to rout,

And I joined in to hack and prod. Pure Tancred praised me with a nod. Ascetic Godfrey even spoke to me: "Lad, you belong to God."

I won my spurs. They _made_ me proud. Before my sword the wizards bowed, Though me they washed. In vigil and fast I joined the perfect order, vowed

To hold my manhood chaste, to gird on might with right and courtesy, To speak the truth, and so to be at variance with the common herd.

Such loftiness a man can feel once in a flash: strong arms, clean hands That forged us into iron bands to unify the world with steel.

But as I left the altar daft with the ambition I had quaffed-- A word can kill a century--one of my perfect brothers laughed:

_I took the vow of virtue As others take to vice. I could not break my heart of you. Men call that sacrifice._

_The priests applauded nature. Poor devil, she was loth Enough. The love of God and you Has made me hate you both._

And I was sad that Christians, clad in robes so dazzling, were not glad To keep them spotless from the world, and give the Virgin all they had.

Yet I was racked by continence of all we rightly rank as sense. I hungered for the Sunflower-tress that now my lips would never press.

I wrenched and wrestled to believe that God had sent us here to grieve Our bodies with this fruitlessness, that only fakirs could achieve

His purpose. Then in blind revolt my soul like an unbroken colt Ran round and round an empty field. The hedge was thick. I could not bolt,

Though one poor knight on stiffened knee revealed beneath his breath to me His thoughts on women while the monks recited magic formulæ.

I sought for solace in renown. Men watched me swagger through the town The youngest knight in Christendom. When women passed I tried to frown.

A year I suffered in this way before the wreck of our array Would undertake the final march. My soul was saved by movement. May

Was with us, when my tutor closed his wintry Juvenal and posed Mid nightingales to quote and kiss the _Pervigilium Veneris_.

I drove his authors from my head, and read Augustin hard instead; But sap was mounting in my veins and western groves where finches wed.

To these no sound of sapphire seas, no stunted firs of Lebanon, Not Tyrian dyes nor Tripoli's loud yellows deafened. We ran on

Through landmarks famed in Holy Writ, Emmaus, Bethlehem ... at last We saw the walls of Zion lit blood-red by sunset and the past.

The conquest of another world unfurled beneath our feet, the land Of miracle and mystery lay as a bauble in our hand.

Men flung their caps up, feigned a swoon. With prostrate lines of us the moon Drew silver circles round the site. A cock crowed--many hours too soon.

We thought to prise the gates ajar. My tutor wrote their private Lar Or else--with Tacitus--their folk designed them for eternal war.

The moat was wide; we feebly tried to stop its gape with pebbles, cried "Fall, Jericho!" The blessèd wall stood firm; but Christ was on our side.

The Church had saved Him from His wan repute and thrust Him in our van, Bronzed, scarred. Alas, the first crusade had made Him out a fighting man!

He taught the Turks to mock Giaours!... sent timely Genoese to build Wheeled wooden turrets. These we filled brimful. Jerusalem was ours.

We entered reverent, barefoot; slew three livelong nights and mornings through, Then paused to sing a thanksgiving. We massacred the morrow too.

And I was glad a Christian lad could boast of some small suffering _ad Majorem Dei gloriam_. I only longed to burn Baghdad.

Nay, I can say I never hid to chamber as my fellows did. I felt my conscience clear as frost, and touched no woman--God forbid.

I set my contrite soul apart with mass, procession, penance, rites That took me out to see the sights, brushing ecstatic lanes athwart

The quiddering mob with tears of joy--my tutor's phrase was hoi polloi-- Though few were left. Some Greeks of ours confused Jerusalem with Troy.

But most the bestial German louts made even their hardest allies sick; They ran to mutilate the quick and sniff the dead with joyous snouts.

Shriven, forgiven, we embraced each stone that Christ had touched, and placed Such relics under treble guard. One note in our rejoicings jarred.

It seemed some types of Jewish dog escaped the flaming synagogue, And their ingratitude was base. They joined to form a wailing-place.

I heard them as I roamed among blind alleys dark and overhung By one-eyed dens. With whining nose against the wall the pack gave tongue:

_Behold Thy people, Lord, a race of mourners. Through this Thy sacred dwelling-place they creep Like strangers. Hearken, Lord, in holes and corners We sit alone and weep._

_For Thy decree, most terrible and holy, That as the fathers sow the sons shall reap, For all Thy just affliction of the lowly, We sit alone and weep._

_For all the glory that is now departed, For all the stones that Thou hast made an heap, Yea, for the city of the broken-hearted, We sit alone and weep._