And my holy religion you’ve scorned and decried,
So now I’ve come down with this army of mine,
The rights and the wrongs of the case to define,
And you have not a chance, for the Musselman star
Must pale when it looks on the flag of the Czar.”
He flung down his challenge, the Turk took it up
(Remarking on slips ’twixt the lip and the cup),
And deigned to his logic the briefest reply,
“That the claim was unjust, and its proof was a lie,”
And he brought up some thousands of swords as a bar