HORROR AND BEAUTY [TRANSLATION]
Reading edition
Gashed hands of children who cry out for bread— While as the flames from sacred places rise The Blonde Beast, hideous, with blood-shot eyes And obscene gesture mutilates the dead— But neither Roncesvalles where Roland bled With Turpin, nor Greek deeds of high emprise Can to a pitch of purer beauty rise Than the Young King, the Priest, unconqueréd. Oh King, soon all thy foes may’st thou repel! And thou, High-Priest, from whose ring, raised to men, Shone the one gleam of Heaven in that Hell, May thy empurpled vestments so avail That from the Cross—not made of Iron then— A richer Christ glow in thy holy grail. Edmond Rostand
Translated by Walter V. R. Berry