Here's Tom Kratman reading G.K. Chesterton's Lopanto. Lopanto. Gilbert Keith Chesterton. White founts falling in the courts of the sun, and the sultan of Byzantium is smiling as they run. There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared. It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard. It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips, for the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships. They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy. They have dashed the Adriatic around the lion of the sea. And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss, and called the kings of Christendom for swords about the cross. The cold queen of England is looking in the glass. The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the mass. From evening Iles Fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun, and the lord upon the golden horn is laughing in the sun. Dem drums throbbing in the hills have heard, were only on the nameless throne at crownless princes stirred. Were risen from a doubtful seat and half-attainted stall, the last night of Europe takes weapons from the wall. The last and lingering troubidor to whom the bird is sung, that once went singing southward when all the word was young. And that enormous silence tiny and unafraid comes up along a winding road the noise of the crusade. Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far. Don John of Austria is going to the war. Stiff flag straining in the night blasts cold, in the gloom black purple in the glint old gold, torch-like crimson on the copper-kettle drums, in the tuckets in the trumpets in the cannon, and he comes. On laughing in the brave-beard curled, spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world, holding his head up as a flag of all the free, love-light of Spain, hurrah, death-light of Africa. Don John of Austria is riding to the sea. Mahum does in his paradise above the evening star, Don John of Austria is going to the war. He moves a mighty turban on the timeless horries knees, his turban that is woven of the sunsets and the seas. He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease and he strides among the treetops and is taller than the trees. And his voice through all the garden is as thunder sent to bring, black asrael and aerial and ammon on the wing. Giants in the junior eye, multiplex of wing and eye, whose strong obedience broke the sky, when Solomon was king. They rushing red and purple from the red clouds of the morn, from the temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes and scorn. They rise in green robes roaring from the green hills of the sea, where fallen skies and evil-used and eyeless creatures be. On them the sea valves cluster and the gray sea-forsts curled, splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl. They swell and safar smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground, they gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahum. And he saith, break up the mountains where the hermit folk can hide, and sift the red and silver sandsless bone of saint abide, and chase the jurors flying night and day not giving rest, for that which was our trouble comes again out of the west. We have set the seal of Solomon and all things under sun, of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done, but annoises in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know, the voice that shook our palaces 400 years ago. It is he that saith not kismet, it is he that knows not fate, it is richer, it is raiment, it is god-free at the gate, it is he whose loss is laughed and when he counts the wage or worth, put down your feet upon him that are peace beyond the earth. For he toured drums-growning and he heard guns jar, Don John of Austria is going to the war, sudden and still hurrah, bolt for my birria, Don John of Austria is gone by al-Qa-lar. St. Michael's on his mountain in the sea-roads of the north, Don John of Austria is girting going forth. With the gray seas glitter in the sharp tides shift in the sea-focal labor and the red sails lift, he shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone, the noise has gone through normandy, the noise has gone alone. The north is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes, and dead is all the innocence of aggrin' surprise, and Christian killed Christian in a narrow dusty room, and Christian dreaded the Christ that had the newer face of doom, and Christian hated the Mary that God kissed in Galilee, but Don John of Austria is riding to the sea. Don John calling the blast on the eclipse, crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips, trumpet that sayeth ha, domino-gloria, Don John of Austria is shouting to the ships. King Phillips in his closet with the fleece about his neck. Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck. The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin, and little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in. He holds a crystal vile that has colors like the moon, he touches and it tingles, and he trembles very soon, and his faces as a fungus of a leprous white and gray like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day. And death is in the file in the end of noble work, but Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk. Don John's hunting in his hounds have bade, booms away past Italy the rumor of his raid, gun upon gun, ha ha, gun upon gun-erah! Don John of Austria has loose the cannon-aid. The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke. Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke. The hidden room in Manshaus where God sits all the year, the secret window wence the world looks small and very dear. He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea the chattel, a crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery. They fling great shadows forwards, making cross and castle dark. They veiled the plume of lions on the galleys of St. Mark. And above the ships of palaces of brown black-bearded chiefs, and below the ships of prisons were with multitudinous griefs. Christian captives sickened sunless, all a laboring race or pines, like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines. They are lost like slaves that sweat and in the skies of morning hung, the stairways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young. They are countless, voiceless hopeless, as those fallen are fleeing on, before the king's high horses and the granite of Babylon. And many of one grows wetless in his quiet room in hell, where yellow face looks inward to the lattice of his cell. And he finds his god forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign. But Don John of Austria has burst the battle line. Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop, purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate sloop, scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds, breaking up the hatches up, and bursting of the holes, thronging of the thousands up that labor under sea, white for bliss and blind for sun, and stunned for liberty. Viva Tespania, Domino Gloria, Don John of Austria, has set his people free. Savannah's on his galley sets the sword back in its sheath. Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath. And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain, up which a lean and foolish night forever rides in vain. And he smiles, but not as salt and smile, and he settles back the blade. But Don John of Austria rides home from the crusade.