That we should root the heathen out, and blight as with a ten years' drought
Their fields. Jehovah willed that we should leave no seed of theirs to sprout.
Our mates streamed in from lands beyond the Adriatic, Bohemond
With Tancred; strait Dalmatian bays, Epirus, Scodra, devious ways
Bore them with boastful tales of sport and plunder, and a vague report
That this was nothing to the spoil that beckoned from the Moslem court.
Henceforth impatient ups and downs possessed us. Asiatic towns
Flamed to the general vision. We heard less perhaps of heavenly crowns
Than flowers and peacocks made of gems, the Caliph's crusted diadems
That crushed the head like Guthlac's bell, and trees with solid emerald stems.