Death Dancers: The Gordons, Waterloo

Trellis paper with roses hung on the walls At the Duchess of Richmond's celebrated ball Etiquette, in an age of set conventions, Was strictly observed. Stiff waxworks ladies Sitting round the room, would soon change Bridal white, for a funeral pall And then the Gordons danced No cotillion, no hornpipe or quadrille No jig or waltz, the soldiers danced a reel In heavy regimentals, each in step that night With reigned in fire, then leapt around their swords One shilling per day (before stoppage) Was each man's pay. Until the fatal words Were whispered. ‘Leave. We march to fight' The leaders in the bitter fray to come, A rum lot. Blücher, the Prussian, on occasion mad, Raved that he was pregnant by a stallion Napoleon, with the haircut of a spaniel Nicknamed ‘Puss in Boots' inspired terror Wellington, hawk nosed, eagle eyed Called his foot soldiers ‘scum'. And then, the armies camped, in little Belgium A sultry, fly-flecked June, by summer crops Of clover, wheat and rye, drenched by a thunderstorm The fields lay sodden in the misty dawn The Gordons, raked and mauled at Quartre-Bras Had scores to settled, deeper wounds than flesh And then the order came, 'Ninetysecond, now is your time"…pause….'Charge! " 'Scotland for ever! " the Greys came galloping past The Highlanders, leaping up to their cavalry stirrups Plunged into the cannon blast How history turns on the single throw of a dice! And always the common soldier pays the price. Boney summoned his bullet-proof carriage. Now, he fled Weighed down with a 100 pieces of solid gold With bottles of rum and Malaga, With 2 million francs of diamonds A cake of Windsor soap In exile he was poisoned, his papers said. The Iron Duke died sitting in his chair, aged 83 The victim of a stroke. Laden with titles and honours The nameless dead who fell at Waterloo Gone, like a puff of smoke