Answer to the Saracens
This is a "Saracen war-song" by James Elroy Flecker. I want answers to it from the "Pale Kings of the Sunset", their minstrels or representatives.
We are they who come faster than fate: we are they who ride early or late:
We storm at your ivory gate: Pale Kings of the Sunset, beware!
Not on silk nor in samet we lie, not in curtained solemnity die
Among women who chatter and cry, and children who mumble a prayer.
But we sleep by the ropes of the camp, and we rise with a shout, and we tramp
With the sun or the moon for a lamp, and the spray of the wind in our hair.
From the lands, where the elephants are, to the forts of Merou and Balghar,
Our steel we have brought and our star to shine on the ruins of Rum.
We have marched from the Indus to Spain, and by God we will go there again;
We have stood on the shore of the plain where the Waters of Destiny boom.
A mart of destruction we made at Jalula where men were afraid,
For death was a difficult trade, and the sword was a broker of doom;
And the Spear was a Desert Physician who cured not a few of ambition,
And drave not a few to perdition with medicine bitter and strong:
And the shield was a grief to the fool and as bright as a desolate pool,
And as straight as the rock of Stamboul when their cavalry thundered along:
For the coward was drowned with the brave when our battle sheered up like a wave,
And the dead to the desert we gave, and the glory to God in our song.
-- James Elroy Flecker
Contest is Over
- Contest was judged on February 17, 2006
- Rewards: Gold: 300
- Final notes: Although only four poems were entered, it was a real pleasure to discover entries as good as the first two prize-winners. These were both very, very fine and stirring poems and I am proud if the contest cxalled them into life. There was really very little to choose between them in quality, and I am awarding Rebeka an extra 100 points as some attempt at compensation for having to put her work second - I am sure it would have been first against any lesser competition. Whitewitchs somewhat ascerbic entry also had a nicely sinister and ominous conclusion.
Entries [1]
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We're marching to battle my friend,
This tyrannous reign it will end,• Commented on by judge.
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Comments
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i don't normally do contest...this looks interesting though so i thik i'll give it a whirl. take care
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Hi can you extend the date a bit my riend not an easy task but would like to try, thanks Di
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I don't know how to formally extend the date, but I can do so informally, I suppose.
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Hi, thanks a million for the gold, congratulations to the other winners, a big hug Di
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