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The Ash and the Oak When men discovered freedom first The fight was on foot, They were encouraged by their thirst And promises of loot, And when it feathered and bows boomed Their virtue was a root. O the ash and the oak and the willow tree And green grows the grass on the infantry! At Malplaquet and Waterloo They were polite and proud, They primed their guns with billet-doux And, as they fired, bowed. At Appomattox too, it seems Some things were understood. O the ash and the oak and the willow tree And green grows the grass on the infantry! But at Verdun and at Bastogne There was a great recoil, The blood was bitter to the bone, The trigger to the soul. And death was nothing if not dull, A hero was a fool. O the ash and the oak and the wil,.ow tree And that's an end of the infantry. -- Louis Simpson |
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READING / LITERATURE LITERATURE ON LINE |