For the blood of thy martyrs and saints

Shall enrich the earth, shall create holy places.

For wherever a saint has dwelt, wherever a martyr has given his blood for the blood of Christ,

There is holy ground, and the sanctity shall not depart from it

Though armies trample over it, though sightseers come with guidebooks looking over it;

From where the western seas gnaw at the coast of Iona,

To the death in the desert, the prayer in forgotten places by the broken imperial column,

From such ground springs that which for ever renews the earth

Though it is forever denied.

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), Murder in the Cathedral, 1938.