Metrical tales, and other poems; - Electric Scotland

52 METBICAL TALES.
And Hock, Bordeaux, and bright Champagne,
Instead of blood, should flow.
0, brave Laplume ! we never feared
To follow where you led.
For never fox had keener nose
For scentmg prey ahead,
Nor ever with a swifter foot
A coming danger fled.
0, many was the toilsome march
From which you saved your men.
And many were the fights we won
Through your audacious pen.
While cheerily we sipped our wine
In some unnoted den.
But war, by proclamation waged.
And battles won in print.
Were not enough to pleasure men
On bloody busmess bent.
And so against the foe, at last.
In very deed we went.
'Tis not my purpose to relate
What conquests we achieved,
Nor how the artful Versaillaise
Misguided France deceived.
Till Fortune turning from our side
Their losses all retrieved.
Yet, I aver, we Communists
Did ne'er sustain defeat,
But only for strategic ends
Thought proper to retreat,