Valenciennes

(1793)
BY CORP'L TULLIDGE: see "The Trumpet-Major"
IN MEMORY OF S. C. (PENSIONER). DIED 184-



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!

1878-1897.

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was an English novelist and poet. Born in Dorset, his works often featured the semi-fictional region of Wessex. Hardy was initially trained as an architect, but he later pursued writing full-time. His novels, including 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles,' 'Far from the Madding Crowd,' and 'Jude the Obscure,' are known for their critical portrayal of Victorian society and its mores. As a poet, he is recognized for his explorations of human suffering and the indifferent forces of nature. Hardy's legacy is profound, influencing both literature and criticism.

Thomas Hardy

A Procession Of Dead Days

Thomas Hardy, Simple Poetry

God-Forgotten

Thomas Hardy, Simple Poetry

She Hears The Storm

Thomas Hardy, Simple Poetry

The Strange House

Thomas Hardy, Simple Poetry

English

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Leipzig

(1813)
Scene: The Master-tradesmen's Parlour at the Old Ship Inn, Casterbridge. Evening.



"Old Norbert with the flat blue cap
A German said to be -
Why let your pipe die on your lap,
Your eyes blink absently?" -

- "Ah! . . . Well, I had thought till my cheek was wet
Of my mother her voice and mien
When she used to sing and pirouette,
And touse the tambourine

"To the march that yon street-fiddler plies:
She told me 'twas the same
She'd heard from the trumpets, when the Allies
Her city overcame.

"My father was one of the German Hussars,
My mother of Leipzig; but he,
Long quartered here, fetched her at close of the wars,
And a Wessex lad reared me.

"And as I grew up, again and again
She'd tell, after trillin...

Thomas Hardy

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 Penins...

Thomas Hardy

And There Was A Great Calm

I

There had been years of Passion scorching, cold,
And much Despair, and Anger heaving high,
Care whitely watching, Sorrows manifold,
Among the young, among the weak and old,
And the pensive Spirit of Pity whispered, "Why?"

II

Men had not paused to answer. Foes distraught
Pierced the thinned peoples in a brute-like blindness,
Philosophies that sages long had taught,
And Selflessness, were as an unknown thought,
And "Hell!" and "Shell!" were yapped at Lovingkindness.

III

The feeble folk at home had grown full-used
To "dug-outs," "snipers," "Huns," from the war-adept
In the mornings heard, and at evetides perused;
To day dreamt men in millions, when they mused
To nightmare-men in millions when they slept.

IV

Thomas Hardy

Channel Firing

That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgment-day

And sat upright. While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worms drew back into the mounds,

The glebe cow drooled. Till God called, "No;
It's gunnery practice out at sea
Just as before you went below;
The world is as it used to be:

"All nations striving strong to make
Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
They do no more for Christes sake
Than you who are helpless in such matters.

"That this is not the judgment-hour
For some of them's a blessed thing,
For if it were they'd have to scour
Hell's floor for so much threatening . . .
<...

Thomas Hardy

The Alarm

(1803)
See "The Trumpet-Major"
IN MEMORY OF ONE OF THE WRITER'S FAMILY WHO WAS A VOLUNTEER DURING THE WAR WITH NAPOLEON



In a ferny byway
Near the great South-Wessex Highway,
A homestead raised its breakfast-smoke aloft;
The dew-damps still lay steamless, for the sun had made no sky-way,
And twilight cloaked the croft.

'Twas hard to realize on
This snug side the mute horizon
That beyond it hostile armaments might steer,
Save from seeing in the porchway a fair woman weep with eyes on
A harnessed Volunteer.

In haste he'd flown there
To his comely wife alone there,
While marching south hard by, to still her fears,
For she soon would be a mother, and few messengers were known there
In these campaigning years.

'Twas time...

Thomas Hardy

The Peasant's Confession

"Si le marechal Grouchy avait ete rejoint par l'officier que Napoleon lui avait expedie la veille a dix heures du soir, toute question eut disparu. Mais cet officier n'etait point parvenu a sa destination, ainsi que le marechal n'a cesse de l'affirmer toute sa vie, et il faut l'en croire, car autrement il n'aurait eu aucune raison pour hesiter. Cet officier avait-il ete pris? avait-il passe a l'ennemi? C'est ce qu'on a toujours ignore."

- THIERS: Histoire de l'Empire. "Waterloo."

Good Father! . . . 'Twas an eve in middle June,
And war was waged anew
By great Napoleon, who for years had strewn
Men's bones all Europe through.

Three nights ere this, with columned corps he'd crossed
The Sambre at Charleroi,
To move on Brussels, where the English host
Dallied in Parc and Bois.

Thomas Hardy