Celuy qui fuit de bonne heure
Peut combattre derechef.
He who flies at the right time can fight again.
Qui fuit peut revenir aussi;
Qui meurt, il n'en est pas ainsi.
He who flies can also return; but it is not so with him who dies.
Ein Schlachten war's, nicht eine Schlacht, zu nennen!
It was a slaughter rather than a battle.
Est ist hier wie in den alten Zeiten
Wo die Hinge noch alles that bedeuten.
It is now as in the days of yore when the sword ruled all things.
Hosti non solum dandam esse viam fugiendi verum etiam muniendam.
Give the enemy not only a road for flight, but also a means of defending it.
And the stern joy which warriors feel
In foemen worthy of their steel.
One blast upon his bugle horn
Were worth a thousand men.
In the lost battle,
Borne down by the flying.
Where mingles wars rattle
With groans of the dying.
"Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!"
Were the last words of Marmion.
Still from the sire the son shall hear
Of the stern strife, and carnage drear,
Of Flodden's fatal field,
When shiver'd was fair Scotland's spear,
And broken was her shield!
Say to the seceded States: "Wayward sisters depart in peace."
There was a stately drama writ
By the hand that peopled the earth and air,
And set the stars in the infinite,
And made night gorgeous and morning fair;
And all that had sense to reason knew
That bloody drama must be gone through.
Some sat and watched how the action veered—
Waited, profited, trembled, cheered—
We saw not clearly nor understood,
But yielding ourselves to the masterhand,
Each in his part as best he could,
We played it through as the author planned.
It's easy to fight when everything's right
And you're mad with the thrill and the glory;
It's easy to cheer when victory's near,
And wallow in fields that are gory.
It's a different song when everything's wrong,
When you're feeling infernally mortal;
When it's ten against one, and hope there is none,
Buck up, little soldier, and chortle!
When children's children shall talk of War as a
madness that may not be;
When we thank our God for our grief today, and
blazon from sea to sea
In the name of the Dead the banner of Peace
. . . that will be Victory.
Fortune is always on the side of the largest battalions.
It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces.
And all the gods go with you! upon your sword
Sit laurel victory! and smooth success
Be strew'd before your feet!
All was lost,
But that the heavens fought.
Give me the cups;
And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
The cannons to heavens, the heavens to earth.
It was great pity, so it was,
That villanous saltpetre should be digg'd
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly; and but for these vile guns
He would himself have been a soldier.
We must haye bloody noses and crack'd crowns,
And pass them current too. God's me, my horse!
