Sense of Responsibility
The anonymous chronicler of the First Crusade Recounts the storming of a provincial town In Cilicia, among the Taurus mountains, And how the inhabitants were massacred, The horses' fetlocks reddened with their blood, Whose sacrifice appeared acceptable, Being Armenians and Monophysites.
But far off upon the hills the bearded Katholikos With pectoral cross and black-robed ecclesiastics Called the deed accursed and cursed the slayers: "Might they but rot in the bogs of hell for ever, The blue-eyed cavaliers!"
Yet they rode on To take the city all uncomprehending Of the sonorous foreign anathema cried against them, Though it must be believed that there were moments Of melancholy after drink or women, Passages of unease; the quartan fever (Or ague was it?), God's hand heavy upon them. But there would never be any linguist to translate it Into images of children spiked on lances, Nothing to explain away the iron shadow Between them and the sun. Shifting their cushions On the stone-flagged castle floor they hawked and spat And dully settled down to rule a kingdom.
ANTHONY HARTLEY.
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