Lepanto

Today is the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, formerly Our Lady of Victory. It was established by Pope Pius V to give thanks to God and the Virgin Mary for the stunning victory of the Catholic Holy League over the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.

To commemorate the day, G.K. Chesterton penned a stirring poem entitled Lepanto. Here's an excerpt:

WHITE founts falling in the Courts of the sun,
And the Soldan 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 round 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 isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.