I dislike poets as a scourge and poetry as a torture, and yet here am I somehow created a poet. I ease my discomfort in poetic knights as King David, Joan of Arc and General Patton were willing in this vocation, and it does help lessen the disgust I have.
I like very few poems, but one which does appeal to me was composed by Ned Botwood the night before his death.
If I were to ask the great generals of World War I, I doubt if few could name but one in the Great European War, but then I was not asking of that second world war, but was venturing the generals upon American soil in what was the French and Indian War or known in Europe then as the Seven Years War which engulfed the world and the winner took the spoils.
It was in that war, that Americans really played little role, except for the Bush Rangers. The main battles were dealt in horrific Indian warfare and upon the Quebec outpost in the two greatest generals of that era in Montecalm and Wolfe.
On that epic Sgt. Edward Botwood of the 47th Grenadiers would charge under General Wolfe who was a stricken man with illness, but rose to the battle which literally cemented North and South America for the Anglo Saxon race.
Botwood would die in this battle, and the French and English would both lose their greatest New World generals. Literally except for the few flares of Gen. Washington, Gen. Clarke, Gen. Jackson, the Americas would not see true military genius until the American Civil War.
The greatest poet in America was the Anglo Saxon, Edward Botwood and not until Longfellow would another arise with an equal in Poe.
War used to be a thing of men's hearts. The shivering rush of the drum beating. The bugle and trumpet's clarion call. The command call of your leader to ready, and the cheer of the Soldier unleashed for battle.
There is too much civility in modern warfare hiding the atrocity of it, in not making it human in the enjoyment of killing an enemy, and then in tribute mourning that enemy valiant in he victor spilling his blood.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Edward Botwood, before he died in French Canada for the America she became.
HOT STUFF
Air,—Lilies of France.
Come, each death-doing dog who dares venture his neck,
Come, follow the hero that goes to Quebec;
Jump aboard of the transports, and loose every sail,
Pay your debts at the tavern by giving leg-bail;
And ye that love fighting shall soon have enough:
Wolfe commands us, my boys; we shall give them Hot Stuff.
Up the River St. Lawrence our troops shall advance,
To the Grenadiers' March we will teach them to dance.
Cape Breton we have taken, and next we will try
At their capital to give them another black eye.
Vaudreuil 't is in vain you pretend to look gruff,—
Those are coming who know how to give you Hot Stuff.
With powder in his periwig, and snuff in his nose,
Monsieur will run down our descent to oppose;
And the Indians will come: but the light infantry
Will soon oblige them to betake to a tree.
From such rascals as these may we fear a rebuff?
Advance, grenadiers, and let fly your Hot Stuff!
When the forty-seventh regiment is dashing ashore,
While bullets are whistling and cannons do roar,
Says Montcalm: "Those are Shirley's—I know the lappels."
"You lie," says Ned Botwood, "we belong to Lascelles'!
Tho' our cloathing is changed, yet we scorn a powder-puff;
So at you, ye bastards, here's give you Hot Stuff."
agtG
