Old Timers

I am an ancient reluctant conscript. On the soup wagons of Xerxes I was a cleaner of pans. On the march of Miltiades' phalanx I had a haft and head; I had a bristling gleaming spear-handle. Red-headed Cæsar picked me for a teamster. He said, "Go to work, you Tuscan bastard, Rome calls for a man who can drive horses." The units of conquest led by Charles the Twelfth, The whirling whimsical Napoleonic columns: They saw me one of the horseshoers. I trimmed the feet of a white horse Bonaparte swept the night stars with. Lincoln said, "Get into the game; your nation takes you." And I drove a wagon and team and I had my arm shot off At Spottsylvania Court House. I am an ancient reluctant conscript.