Start ||| The Philosophical Europe ||| The Political Progress ||| European Witness ||| EU News Blog ||| Special Homages: Meister Eckhart / David Copperfield

 European Witness

TURKEY : THE BLIGHT OF ASIA

Page 5

Silent and dead are churchbell ringers / Of Smyrna, the Christian city, / The music silent and dead the singers / Of Smyrna, the happy city;

And her maidens, pearls of the Island seas / Are gone from the marble palaces / Of Smyrna, enchanting city!

She is dead and rots by the Orient’s gate, / Does Smyrna, the murdered city,
Her artisans gone, her streets desolate— / O Smyrna, the murdered city!

Her children made orphans, widows her wives / While under her stones the foul rat thrives— / O Smyrna, the murdered city!

They crowned with a halo her bishop there, / In Smyrna, the martyred city, / Though dabbled with blood was his long white hair— / O Smyrna, the martyred city!

So she kept the faith in Christendom / From Polycarp to St. Chrysostom,* / Did Smyrna, the glorified city!

George Horton, September 1922.

* [in 156 A.D. St. Polycarp, the patron saint,
of the city] martyred at Smyrna

 

TURKEY : THE BLIGHT OF ASIA

Next : Foreward & Introduction

Excerpts only  The Chapters

 

Previous Page ||| Start of this Cover-Page

The Blight of Asia in Print