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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=117776" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Ballad of the Battle of Gibeon</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Five kings rule o'er the Amorite,<br>Mighty as fear and old as night;<br>Swathed with unguent and gold and jewel,<br>Waxed they merry and fat and cruel.<br>Zedek of Salem, a terror and glory,<br>Whose face was hid while his robes were gory;<br>And Hoham of Hebron, whose loathly face is<br>Heavy and dark o'er the ruin of races;<br>And Piram of Jarmuth, drunk with strange wine,<br>Who dreamed he had fashioned all stars that shine;<br>And Debir of Eglon wild, without pity,<br>Who raged like a plague in the midst of his city;<br>And Japhia of Lachish, a fire that flameth,<br>Who did in the daylight what no man nameth.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">These five kings said one to another,<br>'King unto king o'er the world is brother,<br>Seeing that now, for a sign and a wonder,<br>A red eclipse and a tongue of thunder,<br>A shape and a finger of desolation,<br>Is come against us a kingless nation.<br>Gibeon hath failed us: it were not good<br>That a man remember where Gibeon stood.'<br>Then Gibeon sent to our captain, crying,<br>'Son of Nun, let a shaft be flying,<br>For unclean birds are gathering greedily;<br>Slack not thy hand, but come thou speedily.<br>Yea, we are lost save thou maintain'st us,<br>For the kings of the mountains are gathered against us.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then to our people spake the Deliverer,<br>'Gibeon is high, yet a host may shiver her;<br>Gibeon hath sent to me crying for pity,<br>For the lords of the cities encompass the city<br>With chariot and banner and bowman and lancer,<br>And I swear by the living God I will answer.<br>Gird you, O Israel, quiver and javelin,<br>Shield and sword for the road we travel in;<br>Verily, as I have promised, pay I<br>Life unto Gibeon, death unto Ai.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sudden and still as a bolt shot right<br>Up on the city we went by night.<br>Never a bird of the air could say,<br>'This was the children of Israel's way.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Only the hosts sprang up from sleeping,<br>Saw from the heights a dark stream sweeping;<br>Sprang up straight as a great shout stung them,<br>And heard the Deliverer's war-cry among them,<br>Heard under cupola, turret, and steeple<br>The awful cry of the kingless people.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Started the weak of them, shouted the strong of them,<br>Crashed we a thunderbolt into the throng of them,<br>Blindly with heads bent, and shields forced before us,<br>We heard the dense roar of the strife closing o'er us.<br>And drunk with the crash of the song that it sung them,<br>We drove the great spear-blade in God's name among them.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Redder and redder the sword-flash fell.<br>Our eyes and our nostrils were hotter than hell;<br>Till full all the crest of the spear-surge shocking us,<br>Hoham of Hebron cried out mocking us,<br>'Nay, what need of the war-sword's plying,<br>Out of the desert the dust comes flying.<br>A little red dust, if the wind be blowing -<br>Who shall reck of its coming or going?'<br>Back the Deliverer spake as a clarion,<br>'Mock at thy slaves, thou eater of carrion!<br>Laughest thou at us, in thy kingly clowning,<br>We, that laughed upon Ramases frowning.<br>We that stood up proud, unpardoned,<br>When his face was dark and his heart was hardened?<br>Pharaoh we knew and his steeds, not faster<br>Than the word of the Lord in thine ear, O master.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sheer through the turban his wantons wove him,<br>Clean to the skull the Deliverer clove him;<br>And the two hosts reeled at the sign appalling,<br>As the great king fell like a great house falling.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Loudly we shouted, and living and dying.<br>Bore them all backward with strength and strong crying;<br>And Caleb struck Zedek hard at the throat,<br>And Japhia of Lachish Zebulon smote.<br>The war-swords and axes were clashing and groaning,<br>The fallen were fighting and foaming and moaning;<br>The war-spears were breaking, the war-horns were braying,<br>Ere the hands of the slayers were sated with slaying.<br>And deep in the grasses grown gory and sodden,<br>The treaders of all men were trampled and trodden;<br>And over them, routed and reeled like cattle,<br>High over the turn of the tide of the battle,<br>High over noises that deafen and cover us,<br>Rang the Deliverer's voice out over us.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Stand thou still, thou sun upon Gibeon,<br>Stand thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon!<br>Shout thou, people, a cry like thunder,<br>For the kings of the earth are broken asunder.<br>Now we have said as the thunder says it,<br>Something is stronger than strength and slays it.<br>Now we have written for all time later,<br>Five kings are great, yet a law is greater.<br>Stare, O sun! in thine own great glory,<br>This is the turn of the whole world's story.<br>Stand thou still, thou sun upon Gibeon,<br>Stand thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Smite! amid spear-blades blazing and breaking.<br>More than we know of is rising and making.<br>Stab with the javelin, crash with the car!<br>Cry! for we know not the thing that we are.<br>Stand, O sun! that in horrible patience<br>Smiled on the smoke and the slaughter of nations.<br>Thou shalt grow sad for a little crying,<br>Thou shalt be darkened for one man's dying -<br>Stand thou still, thou sun upon Gibeon,<br>Stand thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">After the battle was broken and spent<br>Up to the hill the Deliverer went,<br>Flung up his arms to the storm-clouds flying,<br>And cried unto Israel, mightily crying,<br>'Come up, O warriors! come up, O brothers!<br>Tribesmen and herdsmen, maidens and mothers;<br>The bondman's son and the bondman's daughter,<br>The hewer of wood and the drawer of water,<br>He that carries and he that brings,<br>And set your foot on the neck of kings.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This is the story of Gibeon fight -<br>Where we smote the lords of the Amorite;<br>Where the banners of princes with slaughter were sodden.<br>And the beards of seers in the rank grass trodden;<br>Where the trees were wrecked by the wreck of cars,<br>And the reek of the red field blotted the stars;<br>Where the dead heads dropped from the swords that sever,<br>Because His mercy endureth for ever.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=G.K.+Chesterton">G.K. Chesterton</a> from <i>The Wild Knight and Other Poems</i><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=117776" data-title="The Ballad of the Battle of Gibeon de G.K. Chesterton" data-description="Five kings rule o'er the Amorite,/Mighty as fear and old as night;/Swathed with unguent and gold and jewel,/Waxed they merry and fat and cruel./Zedek of Salem, a terror and glory,/Whose face was hid while his robes were gory;/And Hoham of Hebron, ..."></div>
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