Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE COMING (CHANSON CORSE), by PHILIP GUEDALLA


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE COMING (CHANSON CORSE), by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In seventeen hundred and eighty-nine
Last Line: "a gunner has travelled, a king to be."
Subject(s): France; Oxford University


IN Seventeen hundred and eighty-nine,
When the nights were cold and the days were fine,
An elderly miner in East Lorraine
Intoned a song with an old refrain: --
"Out of the South and over the sea
A Gunner is coming, a King to be."

In Seventeen hundred and ninety-one,
When the clouds were gathered about the sun,
A singer of ballads beyond Cahors
He wrote this rune on a chantry door: --
"Kings are clever and Kings are tall,
But a Gunner shall swagger above them all."

In Seventeen hundred and ninety-three,
When the King had died for a crowd to see,
The son of a tailor, presumed a fool,
Repeatedly chanted about Vesoul: --
"A Colonel of guns has a horse of his own,
But a Subaltern mounts to an empty throne."

In Seventeen hundred and ninety-five,
When men were astonied to be alive,
It was said by a man on the General Staff,
Who could take a position but could not laugh: --
"Out of the South and over the sea
A Gunner has travelled, a King to be."





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