Three Religious Warriors: Richard I, Saladin, & Charles Martel (Additions to "The Apology Box")

              Richard I’s Sonnet

Christ is my only standard. As he drove

The money changers from the temple who

Profaned it, I in imitation strove

To save God's temples from blasphemers, too.

If smaller groups of money changers must

Be driven out, much more so should we drive

Out hordes of unbelievers.  I was just

Therefore in how I chose to reign and live.

Although great men have critics and I'm not

Immune, I'm confident the worst they’ve said

Of me is I craved men and therefore led

Men East.  If true, such charge condemns me not.

In judging right and wrong, Christ is the test.

I've read his words.  The topic's not addressed.

               Saladin's Round

            (By a Kurdish hero)

There is no God but God and he is Lord

Of every atom of creation.  He

Is thus by his own essence rightfully

The Lord of old Jerusalem and all

Her Asian territories rather than

Someone whose agent sits in far-off Rome.

Someone whose agent sits in far-off Rome

Abstractly drinking blood and eating flesh

With wine and broken bread in temples there

Has brokered more than mere abstractions here.

This broker's swords have broken men and spilled

Real blood and gore throughout God’s Holy Land.

Real blood and gore throughout God’s Holy Land

Required response and we have given aid.

We’ve had to use swords doing that though we

Preferred the use of reason.  Though we’ve won

Upon the field, our greater victory comes

Through favoring mercy over death instead.

Through favoring mercy over death instead

Of other attitudes, we’ve followed God

And done his work.  Though evil trembles at

Such simple logic, we find rest in it--

God favors mercy and believers know

There is no God but God and he is Lord.

                Charles Martel’s Sonnet

Though God is three in one, it’s blasphemy

To tolerate an earthly trinity

Of Christian, Jew, and Muslim. There can be

Just one true faith since Christianity

Alone is scriptural.  Of course God knew

Martel means “hammer” and called me to do

The labor.  Although just a bastard to

That beast Plectude, great battle plans I drew

For plated men and beasts.  At Poitiers,

Design met field.  There my troops held at bay

The foreign hordes our armor drove away

From Christendom forever.  Lord, I pray

For Heavenly inclusion having fought

For God and Christendom as scriptures taught.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.