What the Trumpeter Said by Sebastian Evans. Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. 1895. A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

What the Trumpeter Said

Sebastian Evans (b. 1830)


AT a pot-house bar as I chanced to pass
I saw three men by the flare of the gas:
Soldiers two, with their red-coats gay,
And the third from Chelsea, a pensioner gray,
With three smart hussies as bold as they.	5
Drunk and swearing and swaggering all,
With their foul songs scaring the quiet Mall,
While the clash of glasses and clink of spurs
Kept time to the roystering quiristers,
And the old man sat and stamp’d with his stump:	10
When I heard a trumpeter trumpet a trump:—
“To the wars!—To the wars!
March, march!
Quit your petty little tittle-tattle,
Quit the bottle for the battle,	15
And march!
To the wars, to the wars!
March, march with a tramp!
To the wars!
Up, you toper at your tipple, bottle after bottle at the tap!	20
Quit your pretty dirty Betty! Clap her garter in your cap,
And march!
To the trench and the sap!
To the little victual of the camp!
To the little liquor of the camp!	25
To the breach and the storm!
To the roaring and the glory of the wars!
To the rattle and the battle and the scars!”
Trumpeter, trumpet it out!