Explore "Verses and Sonnets" by Hilaire Belloc on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The Kings come riding back from the Crusade, / The purple Kings and all their mounted men; / They fill the street with clamorous cavalcade; / The Kings have broken down the Saracen. / Singing a great song of the eastern wars, / In crimson ships across the sea they came, / With crimson sails and diamonded dark oars, / That made the Mediterranean flash with flame.
And reading how, in that far month, the ranks / Formed on the edge of the desert, armoured all, / I wish to God that I had been with them / When the first Norman leapt upon the wall, / And Godfrey led the foremost of the Franks, / And young Lord Raymond stormed Jerusalem.