A hundred banners streamed fr0m every coast,
When on the Paynim poured the Christian host;
St. Denis knights their fleur-de-lis unrolled,
And fair St. George’s lion ramped in gold;
Poor Erin’s shamrock over Kedron’s brook,
As on its own bright Shannon, greenly shook;
Cal-Edon’s thistle down the plaided line
Flung its sharp menace over Palestine;
The streaming glories proud Castilia bore
When victory marched with old Cid Campeador.
Still paled the Crescent, still defied the Moor!
Each steel-clad paladin and crested earl
Flung his own ensign on the battle’s whirl,
And round the crescent’s red, malignant eye,
Like meteor’s blazing in the lurid sky,
All poured at once their mingled flames below
The Red Cross banner’s firmamental glow!
So in the Conflict of the Ages stream
Our varied ensigns to the rising beam;
In loose array the severed legions come
To Spartan flute, deep horn, or doubling drum,
And on the Foe their fiery valor toss
Below the milk-white Banner of the Cross, —
Symbol divine of all heroic worth,
That gives or lives a noble life for earth!
No conscious union knits the martial bands,—
But the one Heart, the Life of many lands,
Throbs universal as the pulse that plays
Through all old ocean’s winding gulfs and bays;
No common purpose holds them to its law;
But the one Spirit from which their spirits draw
The breath of inward life, swells every breast,
And singly each keeps time with all the rest.
In realms remote and islands far away
Where comes no herald but the light of day,
No trumpet’s call, nor war-drum’s hollow sound,
But the free winds and billows tumbling round, —
The battle burns, and banded hosts oppose,
Or man by man strikes singly at his foes;
At fervid noon the war-cloud dims the sun,
As trampling myriads mix their hosts in one;
Far in thick darkness, silent and alone
One short, sharp struggle leaves the foe o’erthrown.
Or for a moment’s fair advantage missed,
In life-long struggle groans the agonist!
Alone he deems him, but that Power above
Who marshalls victory bannered with His love,
Fills foot to foot the never-broken lines
With unseen allies where a true steel shines;
And though we mark but here and there a man,
Prophet or warrior, in the new day’s van,
The eyes of angels from their glowing arch
See solid squadrons in resistless march.
Nor time nor space disturbs the equal beat
Of their firm hearts and irreversible feet;
For every true step on our battle sod
Rhymes with the Morning Stars and all the Sons of God.
There are more champions of the Eternal Good
Than even good men dreamed of, when they stood
On loneliest peaks of awful solitude
Sublimely daring, with such faith endued
As kept the Three no furnace-flames could scorch;
Their stake of martyrdom the Hymen’s torch
Of their soul’s marriage with immortal Truth;
Caught up in fire to everlasting youth, —
From peak to peak their flaming signals ran
Back through all time to where first day began;
And the stars answered, and the legions there
Flung hallelujahs down the vibrant air.
Till the pale Sufferer on his fiery throne
In death smiled, conscious he was not alone!
George Shepard Burleigh
