This week's poem is longer than any I have selected in previous weeks. But with a military confrontation looming between the forces of the United States and those of radical Islam, I thought it was time to present Chesterton's great ballad, Lepanto, excerpts from which I ran last April in The Political Forum newsletter.

This poem tells of the naval battle in 1571 in the Gulf of Patras, off Lepanto, Greece, in which Christian forces, led by Don John of Austria, defeated the fleet of the Ottoman Empire, thus preventing the Muslim world from gaining naval supremacy in the Mediterranean, and marking the beginning of the Empire's decline on both land and sea. Incidentally, this battle was fought on Oct. 7, the same date that in 2001 American forces began bombing Afghanistan.

Approximately 15,000 Muslim Turks were slain or captured in this famous confrontation, and some 10,000 Christian galley slaves were liberated. It was the first major Ottoman defeat by Christian powers, and ended the myth of Ottoman naval invincibility. This was, by the way, the battle in which Cervantes lost the use of his left arm.

There are parts of this poem that are not immediately understandable to someone who doesn't have a good play list of the leaders of Europe during this time. But this isn't important. Go to a room by yourself and read this poem aloud. In fact, not just aloud, but loudly. And don't worry about the parts you don't understand. Read through them. This is a poem like Poe's "The Bells" that can only be truly enjoyed by reading it aloud, loudly.

Go to the following web site, www.nafpaktos.com/battle_of_lepanto.htm, if you would like additional details about the battle, along with maps. The following excerpts are illustrative.

Now the setting was complete. The cross and the crescent fluttered aloft, symbolizing the two religions and the two hostile Civilizations of Christendom and Islam, whose forces were about to meet in the decisive battle of their long and bitter holy war . . . With the very first barrage many Turkish galleys were sunk and over a score badly damaged. After an hour of heavy fighting it was captured, the first Christian prize of the battle. The Christians were more than a match for them. In fact, they fought with such incredible ferocity that the battle soon became a slaughter. The defeat of the Turk's right wing was complete. Not one galley escaped. Those that were not sunk, burned, or grounded ashore were captured by their Christian opponents. The whole battle was over by four o'clock that afternoon, even though many of the Christian galleys were still giving chase to the Turkish ships and other solitary escaping Turkish vessels. The waters of the gulf for miles around were stained red from the great amount of blood shed that day and the sea was strewn with the bodies of both victors and vanquished . . . A large majority of the seventy-five thousand men who had entered the battle on the Moslem side were killed, five thousand were taken prisoner (with at least twice that number of Christian galley slaves liberated), and only a few were able to escape either by ship or by swimming ashore. Turkey, for the first time in several centuries, was left without a navy.

Chesterton is a towering figure in English literature. He was born in London and educated as an artist. But he took up journalism at a young age, and then moved on to become a prolific and widely read poet, novelist, playwright and literary critic. He was an energetic conservative in the true sense of the word, celebrating in his works the Englishness of England, human rights, diversity, individuality, and above all the Christian faith.