Wessex Poems and Other Verses

Valenciennes

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We trenched, we trumpeted and drummed,

And from our mortars tons of iron hummed

Ath'art the ditch, the month we bombed

The Town o' Valencieen.

'Twas in the June o' Ninety-dree

(The Duke o' Yark our then Commander been)

The German Legion, Guards, and we

Laid siege to Valencieen.

This was the first time in the war

That French and English spilled each other's gore;

--Few dreamt how far would roll the roar

Begun at Valencieen!

'Twas said that we'd no business there

A-topperen the French for disagreen;

However, that's not my affair -

We were at Valencieen.

Such snocks and slats, since war began

Never knew raw recruit or veteran:

Stone-deaf therence went many a man

Who served at Valencieen.

Into the streets, ath'art the sky,

A hundred thousand balls and bombs were fleen;

And harmless townsfolk fell to die

Each hour at Valencieen!

And, sweaten wi' the bombardiers,

A shell was slent to shards anighst my ears:

--'Twas nigh the end of hopes and fears

For me at Valencieen!

They bore my wownded frame to camp,

And shut my gapen skull, and washed en clean,

And jined en wi' a zilver clamp

Thik night at Valencieen.

"We've fetched en back to quick from dead;

But never more on earth while rose is red

Will drum rouse Corpel!" Doctor said

O' me at Valencieen.

'Twer true. No voice o' friend or foe

Can reach me now, or any liven been;

And little have I power to know

Since then at Valencieen!

I never hear the zummer hums

O' bees; and don' know when the cuckoo comes;

But night and day I hear the bombs

We threw at Valencieen . . .

As for the Duke o' Yark in war,

There be some volk whose judgment o' en is mean;

But this I say--a was not far

From great at Valencieen.

O' wild wet nights, when all seems sad,

My wownds come back, as though new wownds I'd had;

But yet--at times I'm sort o' glad

I fout at Valencieen.

Well: Heaven wi' its jasper halls

Is now the on'y Town I care to be in . . .

Good Lord, if Nick should bomb the walls

As we did Valencieen!

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