Feast of the Ascension

I learned a new word today.

Giaour. It is word of Turkish origin that Muslims use to refer to infidels, or Christians, or Greeks. It is old. Lord Byron wrote a poem titled Giaour.

I learnt it from Lepanto. If ever I own or have access to a camera regularly, I'll record it for you on the 'tube. (In no sense do I understand conversational Deustch; I just like how it sounds, and am amazed by what one can learn without understanding the narrator.)

So it wasn't the wasted day I labored to make it after ten.

My point in bringing all this up is that I had no idea, none, that Chesterton wrote verse. It's like suddenly discovering that in your friend's attic are the scores of really good portraits she's done for the last twenty years which she never mentioned. Also: Cervantes reference!

And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii,
Multiplex of wing and eye, 45
Whose strong obedience broke the sky
When Solomon was king.
...
And death is in the phial and the end of noble work, 100
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John's hunting, and his hounds have bayed—
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid.
...
Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain, 140
Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)