Spirit of the Crusades
Narrated by Tony Dawson
Spain
SPIRIT OF THE CRUSADES
Stoney Wales
with its slate-grey roofs
in slate-grey Cardiff
and its greystone houses on greystone terraces
and its great high statue of
“The Spirit of the Crusades”
in the Wales National Museum
portraying a medieval knight
in grey metal armor and helmet
with visor down
on a great grey steed
with four grey foot soldiers
in close march about him
(two at the head of the horse
two behind)
wearing World War One helmets
and carrying World War One rifles
with fixed bayonets
And the Crusades are over
but they are still marching
over the grey sea-locked land
in a dead march
straight through the twentieth century