Wessex Poems and Other Verses

’Twas in the June o’ Ninety-dree
(The Duke o’ Yark our then Commander been)
The German Legion, Guards, and we
Laid siege to Valencieën.

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 Valencieën!

’Twas said that we’d no business there
A-topperèn the French for disagreën;
However, that’s not my affair —
We were at Valencieën.

Such snocks and slats, since war began
Never knew raw recruit or veteran:
Stone-deaf therence went many a man
Who served at Valencieën.

Into the streets, ath’art the sky,
A hundred thousand balls and bombs were fleën;
And harmless townsfolk fell to die
Each hour at Valencieën!

And, sweatèn wi’ the bombardiers,
A shell was slent to shards anighst my ears:
– ’Twas nigh the end of hopes and fears
For me at Valencieën!

They bore my wownded frame to camp,
And shut my gapèn skull, and washed en cleän,
And jined en wi’ a zilver clamp
Thik night at Valencieën.

“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 Valencieën.

’Twer true.  No voice o’ friend or foe
Can reach me now, or any livèn beën;
And little have I power to know
Since then at Valencieën!

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 Valencieën.

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 Valencieën.

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 Valencieën.

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 Valencieën!

    1878–1897.

SAN SEBASTIAN

(August 1813)

With Thoughts of Sergeant M – (Pensioner), who died 185–

“Why, Sergeant, stray on the Ivel Way,
As though at home there were spectres rife?
From first to last ’twas a proud career!
And your sunny years with a gracious wife
Have brought you a daughter dear.

“I watched her to-day; a more comely maid,
As she danced in her muslin bowed with blue,
Round a Hintock maypole never gayed.”
– “Aye, aye; I watched her this day, too,
As it happens,” the Sergeant said.

“My daughter is now,” he again began,
“Of just such an age as one I knew
When we of the Line and Forlorn-hope van,
On an August morning – a chosen few —
Stormed San Sebastian.

“She’s a score less three; so about was she—
The maiden I wronged in Peninsular days.
You may prate of your prowess in lusty times,
But as years gnaw inward you blink your bays,
And see too well your crimes!

“We’d stormed it at night, by the vlanker-light
Of burning towers, and the mortar’s boom:
We’d topped the breach; but had failed to stay,