Welcome to Season 2 of The Well Read Poem podcast. During this season, our host, classicist and poet Thomas Banks will be reading and interpreting six poems of history. This week's poem is "Constantinople" by J. C. Squire. Poem begins at timestamp 4:29.

Constantinople by Sir John Collings Squire JUSTINIAN. Does the church stand I raised Against the unchristened East? Still do my ancient altars bear The sacrificial feast? My jewels are they bright, My marbles and my paint, Wherewith I glorified the Lord And many a martyred Saint? And does my dome still float Above the Golden Horn? And do my priests on Christmas Day Still sing that Christ was born? EUROPE. Though dust your house, Justinian, Still stands your lordliest shrine, But the dark men who walk therein, Know not of bread nor wine. They fell long since upon your stones, And made your colours dim, Their priests who pray on Christmas Day They sing no Christmas hymn. But a voice at evening goes From every climbing tower, Crying a word you never heard, A name of desert power. CONSTANTINE PALAEOLOGUS. For seven hundred years We gripped a weakening blade, Keeping the gateway of the West With none to give us aid. Till at the last they broke What Constantine had built, And by the shattered wall the blood Of Constantine was spilt. Do men remember still The manner of my death, How after all those failing years I at the last kept faith? They know it for a bygone thing True but indifferent, For many a fight has come to pass Since to the wall you went. Westward and northward, Emperor, Poured on that bloody brood, Till those must turn to save themselves Who had known not gratitude. One fought them on the Middle Sea, One at Vienna's gate, And then the kings of Christendom Watched the red tide abate. Till in the end Byzantium Heard a returning war; But still a Mehmet holds your tomb ... Keep silence ... ask no more.