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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=400534" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Ballad of St. Barbara</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">(St Barbara is the patron saint of gunners, and those in danger<br>of sudden death.)</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When the long grey lines came flooding upon Paris in the plain,<br>We stood and drank of the last free air we never could taste again:<br>They had led us back from the lost battle, to halt we knew not where<br>And stilled us: and our gaping guns were dumb with our despair.<br>The grey tribes flowed for ever from the infinite lifeless lands<br>And a Norman to a Breton spoke, his chin upon his hands.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'There was an end to Ilium; and an end came to Rome;<br>And a man plays on a painted stage in the land that he calls home;<br>Arch after arch of triumph, but floor beyond falling floor,<br>That lead to a low door at last; and beyond that is no door.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the Breton to the Norman spoke, like a small child spoke he,<br>And his sea-blue eyes were empty as his home beside the sea:<br>'There are more windows in one house than there are eyes to see,<br>There are more doors in a man's house, but God has hid the key:<br>Ruin is a builder of windows; her legend witnesseth<br>Barbara, the saint of gunners, and a stay in sudden death.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It seemed the wheel of the world stood still an instant in its turning,<br>More than the kings of the earth that turned with the turning of Valmy mill:<br>While trickled the idle tale and the sea-blue eyes were burning,<br>Still as the heart of a whirlwind the heart of the world stood still.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Barbara the beautiful<br>Had praise of tongue and pen:<br>Her hair was like a summer night<br>Dark and desired of men.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her feet like birds from far away<br>That linger and light in doubt;<br>And her face was like a window<br>Where a man's first love looked out.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her sire was master of many slaves,<br>A hard man of his hands;<br>They built a tower about her<br>In the desolate golden lands,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sealed as the tyrants sealed their tombs,<br>Planned with an ancient plan,<br>And set two windows in the tower<br>Like the two eyes of a man.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Our guns were set towards the foe; we had no word for firing.<br>Grey in the gateway of St Gond the Guard of the tyrant shone;<br>Dark with the fate of a falling star, retiring and retiring,<br>The Breton line went backward and the Breton tale went on.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Her father had sailed across the sea<br>For the harbour of Africa<br>When all the slaves took up their tools<br>For the bidding of Barbara.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She smote the bare wall with her hand<br>And bade them smite again;<br>She poured them wealth of wine and meat<br>To stay them in their pain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And cried through the lifted thunder<br>Of thronging hammer and hod<br>'Throw open the third window<br>In the third name of God.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then the hearts failed and the tools fell,<br>And far towards the foam,<br>Men saw a shadow on the sands<br>And her father coming home.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Speak low and low, along the line the whispered word is flying,<br>Before the touch, before the time, we may not loose a breath:<br>Their guns must mash us to the mire and there be no replying,<br>Till the hand is raised to fling us for the final dice to death.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">''There were two windows in your tower,<br>Barbara, Barbara,<br>For all between the sun and moon<br>In the lands of Africa.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Hath a man three eyes, Barbara,<br>A bird three wings,<br>That you have riven roof and wall<br>To look upon vain things?'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her voice was like a wandering thing<br>That falters yet is free,<br>Whose soul has drunk in a distant land<br>Of the rivers of liberty.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'There are more wings than the wind knows<br>Or eyes that see the sun<br>In the light of the lost window<br>And the wind of the doors undone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For out of the first lattice<br>Are the red lands that break<br>And out of the second lattice<br>Sea like a green snake,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But out of the third lattice<br>Under low eaves like wings<br>Is a new corner of the sky<br>And the other side of things.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It opened in the inmost place an instant beyond uttering,<br>A casement and a chasm and a thunder of doors undone,<br>A seraph's strong wing shaken out the shock of its unshuttering,<br>That split the shattered sunlight from a light beyond the sun.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Then he drew sword and drave her<br>Where the judges sat and said,<br>'Caesar sits above the gods,<br>Barbara the maid.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Caesar hath made a treaty<br>With the moon and with the sun,<br>All the gods that men can praise<br>Praise him every one.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There is peace with the anointed<br>Of the scarlet oils of Bel,<br>With the Fish God, where the whirlpool<br>Is a winding stair to hell,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With the pathless pyramids of slime,<br>Where the mitred negro lifts<br>To his black cherub in the cloud<br>Abominable gifts,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With the leprous silver cities<br>Where the dumb priests dance and nod,<br>But not with the three windows<br>And the last name of God.''</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They are firing, we are falling, and the red skies rend and shiver us,<br>Barbara, Barbara, we may not loose a breath -<br>Be at the bursting doors of doom, and in the dark deliver us,<br>Who loosen the last window on the sun of sudden death.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Barbara the beautiful<br>Stood up as queen set free,<br>Whose mouth is set to a terrible cup<br>And the trumpet of liberty.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'I have looked forth from a window<br>That no man now shall bar,<br>Caesar's toppling battle-towers<br>Shall never stretch so far.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The slaves are dancing in their chains,<br>The child laughs at the rod,<br>Because of the bird of the three wings,<br>And the third face of God.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The sword upon his shoulder<br>Shifted and shone and fell,<br>And Barbara lay very small<br>And crumpled like a shell.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What wall upon what hinges turned stands open like a door?<br>Too simple for the sight of faith, too huge for human eyes,<br>What light upon what ancient way shines to a far-off floor.<br>The line of the lost land of France or the plains of Paradise?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Caesar smiled above the gods<br>His lip of stone was curled,<br>His iron armies wound like chains<br>Round and round the world,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the strong slayer of his own<br>That cut down flesh for grass,<br>Smiled too, and went to his own tower<br>Like a walking tower of brass,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the songs ceased and the slaves were dumb;<br>And far towards the foam<br>Men saw a shadow on the sands;<br>And her father coming home...</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Blood of his blood upon the sword<br>Stood red but never dry.<br>He wiped it slowly, till the blade<br>Was blue as the blue sky.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But the blue sky split with a thunder-crack,<br>Spat down a blinding brand,<br>And all of him lay black and flat<br>As his shadow on the sand.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The touch and the tornado; all our guns give tongue together,<br>St Barbara for the gunnery and God defend the right,<br>They are stopped and gapped and battered as we blast away the weather,<br>Building window upon window to our lady of the light.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For the light is come on Liberty, her foes are falling, falling,<br>They are reeling, they are running, as the shameful years have run,<br>She is risen for all the humble, she has heard the conquered calling,<br>St Barbara of the Gunners, with her hand upon the gun.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They are burst asunder in the midst that eat of their own flatteries,<br>Whose lip is curled to order as its barbered hair is curled...<br>Blast of the beauty of sudden death, St Barbara of the batteries!<br>That blow the new white window in the wall of all the world.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For the hand is raised behind us, and the bolt smites hard<br>Through the rending of the doorways, through the death-gap of the Guard,<br>For the cry of the Three Colours is in Conde and beyond<br>And the Guard is flung for carrion in the graveyard of St Gond,<br>Through Mondemont and out of it, through Morin marsh and on<br>With earthquake of salutation the impossible thing is gone,<br>Gaul, charioted and charging, great Gaul upon a gun,<br>Tip-toe on all her thousand years and trumpeting to the sun:<br>As day returns, as death returns, swung backwards and swung home,<br>Back on the barbarous reign returns the battering-ram of Rome.<br>While that the east held hard and hot like pincers in a forge,<br>Came like the west wind roaring up the cannon of St George,<br>When the hunt is up and racing over stream and swamp and tarn<br>And their batteries, black with battle, hold the bridgeheads of the Marne,<br>And across the carnage of the Guard, by Paris in the plain,<br>The Normans to the Bretons cried and the Bretons cheered again...<br>But he that told the tale went home to his house beside the sea<br>And burned before St Barbara, the light of the windows three,<br>Three candles for an unknown thing, never to come again,<br>That opened like the eye of God on Paris in the plain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Gilbert+Keith+Chesterton">Gilbert Keith Chesterton</a><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=400534" data-title="The Ballad of St. Barbara de Gilbert Keith Chesterton" data-description="(St Barbara is the patron saint of gunners, and those in danger
of sudden death.)

When the long grey lines came flooding upon Paris in the plain,
We stood and drank of the last free air we never could taste again:
They had led us back from the lo..."></div>
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