What a Tragic, Glorious Call-to-Arms,
That I have Seen, in Art, unfold:
Full of Wonder, full of Devotion,
Difficult, from Tears, to hold?
Ah! Such, always, is His Truth.
Children, in the Prime of Youth,
Young Hearts ever-Faithful, Rosy Fists ever-clenched,
Ignorant of that, which Heals or Hurts,
Only Knowing He who Saves:
His Word was all they needed.
Without Mail, without gleaming Arms,
Making Pilgrimage to the Holy Land!
Who, among all Pious Men, will Answer them?
Who will heed their Enslaved cry?
Never, since the Firmament was made,
Did such an Innocent Crusade,
Usher forward march to Palestine, Divine.
And, never again, while the Mortal Earth does last,
May it Reproduce, from Womb, the Past;
Never, will the World See, again:
Such a Peaceful Host, such a Holy Band,
That, over Mountain, high, and,
Over Storm-tossed main,
Journeying, Solemn,
As would a little Templar marching-train,
Bound for Palestine: the Holy Land.
Like a Spring Rain of Lillies, ravaged and blown,
From the Nurturing Bogs, they, Loyal, came;
Like a Family of Storks, as one, that fly,
Through the scarcely-challenged sky,
Holding nothing, save the Serpent's Demise,
As meal, for their Own,
Passed these Saintly Children: into Realms unknown;
Passed these Brave and Faithful Youths:
Only to Suffer, Slave and Die.
What Holy Conquests, and Grand,
Those Harnessed, Iron-Plated
Knights of Christendom had failed,
By their Sanctified Prowess, to Achieve,
They, the Children, of the West, could: and must.
Little foresaw the Hermit, Preaching,
Of future Holy Wars to Knight and Baron, High,
That the Words dropped from his Holy Teachings,
His Professing, his Beseeching,
Would, by Children's Hands, be wrought,
And the Sacred Staff, over which, he leaned,
might Blossom, with the Flowers of God.
And, just as a Wintry breeze uplifts,
The ungathered Autumn's fallen leaves
In the shaded Heart of a Forest;
Not, as separate leaves, but, grandly, massed
All together, in all the World's blast;
So, in the name of Christ, and Right, and Good,
His ready breath, sent forth,
All at once, the many-leaved,
Multitude, of Ten-Thousands, on Ten-Thousands.
In the tempest of the Sea-Port Air,
Rock the low branches, with all their nests,
Cradled on their tossing crests,
As youthful Waterfowl,
Hunting the vile Asp, within the River-Margin's wet;
By the fervid Zeal of parents' Prayers,
Troubled young Hearts were everywhere,
Rocked to sleep, and tossed along,
In Pale Childrens' Ruddy Chests.
Yet, not in vain; not for nothing,
Were these Poor, Impoverished Children cast,
For, amidst the Sleet; and icy, Gale-swept Hails,
Of each Wind-chilled, Alpine pass,
By which their frail Forms, and steady, passed:
It was they: mere Children,
But The Lord's Flock, just the same, who,
Without even a blinking Star, for Guide,
Marched on, and strove to Journey, long,
For grown Men, and Able, such as you, and I!