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