Hymn to St George

This is the text of the hymn we sang at the end of Benediction at the Oratory on St George's Day:

Arm! arm! for the struggle approaches,
Prepare for the combat of life:
Saint George! be our watchword in battle,
Saint George! be our strength in the strife.

Great Saint, from the throne of thy splendour,
Look down on thy chosen isle,
Soon,soon may they share in thy glory,
Who faithfully strive her awhile.

The land of the love is a desert,
It s temples and altars are bare,
The finger of death is upon it,
The footprints of Satan are there.

Arise in the might of they power,
And scatter the foes of the Lord;
As the idols of Rome in their temple
Were crushed at the sound of thy word.

Oh, bring back the faith that we cherish,
For which thou hast nobly withstood
The tortures and rack of the tyrant,
That faith which thou seal'dst with thy blood.

Now this may not be the greatest example of the hymnographer's art, but it did occur to me that it certainly did not lack topicality in present political and cultural circumstances.

Bishop Fleming tugged my sleeve to use this illustration of Donatellp's statue of St George as it dates from 1416-17, and so was brand new when Richard Fleming was in Florence in 1418-20.