Eulogium Upon Jeanne d'Arc

Jeanne! Eternally as now named excellent, robed of beatitudes, eleutherian, royally throned, found only supreme to excite reverence, how dare I name thee? Hail, immaculate love and religion incarnate, one name not to be surpassed in the long story of heroism, virtue and grace that deify the word Woman.

Now blessed above all trees be the olive beneath whose shadow thou wast nurtured! A mountain village, a lonely hut; no palace gleaming above the splendours of a mighty city; the Spirit of Liberty knows not these bonds. The sky is its dome; the sun its lamp; the flowers its tapestries.

Jeanne, thou was born with the Spring; and July set its seal of gold upon thy forehead. The sun himself coloured thy hair; and Mars and Venus blended their rays to gild thine eyes. Fearless and free wast thou, and knewest not thy destiny. For when thou wast come to hours of knowledge, thou didst find thy sacred land in the power of a monster. Monstrous and terrible, threatening hell's envy, with fire of Satan, tyrannous, evil, remorseless. Beneath the holy mountain, the fair springs, fringed with their ashen aspens, were befouled. Sorrowfully brooding, thou didst seek light and life and liberty and love—not upon earth but in the heavens! Thou didst call, and the Lord answered thee, a Lord eternal, invisible, strong tower, eternal refuge, crowned, radiant, omnipotent, eternal youth!

The snowy summits of the Alps, witnesses of God's will that man be free, rejoiced as on that glorious morning of July, the rod of the Divine Will was laid upon thee first. It penetrated all thy being, that glowed and quickened as the first outpourings of the Holy Spirit flooded thee. From such initiation there is no escape, no turning-back; so holy an hour is the Fiat of the Fate of the Chosen of the Lord Most High.

Thus vision after vision came upon thee; Saint Francis saw the heavens no clearer; the angels themselves surprised thee not, folding their wings upon their faces before the Glory of the Lord. Soon or late, thou must take up thy burden; the monster must be slain; the fair land must be freed.

And so didst thou, as it was given thee to do. Victory sat upon thine helm; the land was free.

I have no heart to say more. Must it ever be thus that treason and superstition and tyranny should have force to destroy the vehicle of the Spirit of Freedom? Nay, it shall not be so. America, answer it!

Whether in this great city, where the Atlantic thunders, the vision come upon us, or in Chicago where the wide waste of Michigan is the silence of the tameless waters, or in Buffalo where Niagara roars his battle-slogan, or where the pines of Oregon answer the palms of California, "Skyward to sun and light" (yea! or even in Canada, from Erie to Vancouver), let it inspire us to preserve and to enlarge that liberty—of which thou, Jeanne, was the protagonist of thine age.

This wreath of green and white speak to us of freedom and of purity; a talisman consecrated by almighty power; a symbol of the victory she won for us not only over tyranny, but over time. And these letters of crimson, be they our sacrifice, that man should no more have to die—as did this maid—for what should be his heritage unchallenged.

Jeanne, golden rose of earth, white lily of heaven, Jeanne, true sister and true bride of every poet's and every free man's heart, I salute thee. I bid thee not farewell; nay, be thou ever with me till the hour of death bring me to that greater freedom that flowers not upon the earth.

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