I AM an ancient reluctant conscript. On the soup wagons of Xerxes I was a cleaner of pans. On the march of Miltiades' phalanx I had a haft and head; I had a bristling gleaming spear-handle. Red-headed Caesar picked me for a teamster. He said, "Go to work, you Tuscan bastard, Rome calls for a man who can drive horses." The units of conquest led by Charles the Twelfth, The whirling whimsical Napoleonic columns: They saw me one of the horseshoers. I trimmed the feet of a white horse Bonaparte swept the night stars with. Lincoln said, "Get into the game; your nation takes you." And I drove a wagon and team and I had my arm shot off At Spottsylvania Court House. I am an ancient reluctant conscript. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...EXILE OF ERIN by THOMAS CAMPBELL IKE WALTON'S PRAYER by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY THE END OF IT by FRANCIS THOMPSON THE FORSAKEN by C. HAMILTON AIDE PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 1. ALLAH by EDWIN ARNOLD SPIRITUAL WORSHIP by BERNARD BARTON THE WANDERER: 3. IN ENGLAND: 'CARPE DIEM' by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON |