Saracen

"Proud Saracen, pollute no more The shrines by martyrs built of yore!"

"Saraceni tamen nec amici nobis umquam nec hostes optandi, ultro citroque discursantes, quicquid inveniri poterat momento temporis parvi vastabant, milvorum rapacium similes, qui si praedam dispexerint celsius, volatu rapiunt celeri, ac sitimpetraverint, non immorantur. Apud has gentes, quarum exordiens initium ab Assyriis, ad Nili cataractas porrigitur, et confinia Blemmyarum, omnes pari sorte sunt bellatores, seminudi coloratis sagulis pube tenus amicti, equorum adiumento pernicium graciliumque camelorum per diversa reptantes, in tranquillis vel turbidis rebus; nec eorum quisquam aliquando stivam apprehendit, vel arborem colit, aut arva subigendo quaeritat victum, sed errant semper per spatia longe lateque distenta, sine lare sine sedibus fixis aut legibus; nec idem perferunt diutius caelum, aut tractus unius sol illis umquam placet. Vita est illis semper in fuga, uxoresque mercennariae conductae ad tempus ex pacto, atque (ut sit species matrimonii,) dotis nomine futura coniunx hastam et tabernaculum offert marito, post statum diem (si id elegerit,) discessura, et incredibile est quo ardore apud eos in venerem! uterque solvitur sexus. Ita autem quoad vixerint late palantur, ut alibi mulier nubat, in loco pariat alio, liberosque procul educat,? nulla copia quiescendi permissa. Victus universis caro ferina est, lactisque abundans copia qua sustentantur, et herbae multiplices, et siquae alites capi per aucupium possint, et plerosque nos vidimus frumenti usum et vini penitus ignorantes."

"We are they who come faster than fate: we are they who ride early or late: We storm at your ivory gate: Pale Kings of the Sunset, beware! Not on silk nor in samet we lie, not in curtained solemnity die Among women who chatter and cry, and children who mumble a prayer. But we sleep by the ropes of the camp, and we rise with a shout, and we tramp With the sun or the moon for a lamp, and the spray of the wind in our hair.From the lands, where the elephants are, to the forts of Merou and Balghar, Our steel we have brought and our star to shine on the ruins of Rûm. We have marched from the Indus to Spain, and by God we will go there again; We have stood on the shore of the plain where the Waters of Destiny boom. A mart of destruction we made at Jalula where men were afraid, For death was a difficult trade, and the sword was a broker of doom;And the Spear was a Desert Physician who cured not a few of ambition, And drave not a few to perdition with medicine bitter and strong: And the shield was a grief to the fool and as bright as a desolate pool, And as straight as the rock of Stamboul when their cavalry thundered along: For the coward was drowned with the brave when our battle sheered up like a wave, And the dead to the desert we gave, and the glory to God in our song."