Explore "The Wild Knight and other Poems: the Ballad of the Battle of Gibeon" by G.K. Chesterton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Five kings rule o'er the Amorite, / Mighty as fear and old as night; / Swathed with unguent and gold and jewel, / Waxed they merry and fat and cruel. / Zedek of Salem, a terror and glory, / Whose face was hid while his robes were gory; / And Hoham of Hebron, whose loathly face is / Heavy and dark o'er the ruin of races; / And Piram of Jarmuth, drunk with strange wine, / Who dreamed he had fashioned all stars that shine; / And Debir of Eglon wild, without pity, / Who raged like a plague in the midst of his city; / And Japhia of Lachish, a fire that flameth, / Who did in the daylight what no man nameth.
These five kings said one to another, / 'King unto king o'er the world is brother, / Seeing that now, for a sign and a wonder, / A red eclipse and a tongue of thunder, / A shape and a finger of desolation, / Is come against us a kingless nation. / Gibeon hath failed us: it were not good / That a man remember where Gibeon stood. ' / Then Gibeon sent to our captain, crying, / 'Son of Nun, let a shaft be flying, / For unclean birds are gathering greedily; / Slack not thy hand, but come thou speedily. / Yea, we are lost save thou maintain'st us, / For the kings of the mountains are gathered against us.'