An Old Twenty-third Man Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCDCEFGGDDHHIGJGA KALLMMDDNN| Is that the Three and Twentieth Strabo mine | A |
| Marching below and we still gulping wine | A |
| From the sad magic of his fragrant cup | B |
| The red faced old centurion started up | B |
| Cursed battered on the table No he said | C |
| Not that The Three and Twentieth Legion's | D |
| dead | C |
| Dead in the first year of this damned campaign | E |
| The Legion's dead dead and won't rise again | F |
| Pity Rome pities her brave lads that die | G |
| But we need pity also you and I | G |
| Whom Gallic spear and Belgian arrow miss | D |
| Who live to see the Legion come to this | D |
| Unsoldierlike slovenly bent on loot | H |
| Grumblers diseased unskilled to thrust or shoot | H |
| O brown cheek muscled shoulder sturdy | I |
| thigh | G |
| Where are they now God watch it struggle | J |
| by | G |
| The sullen pack of ragged ugly swine | A |
| Is that the Legion Gracchus Quick the | K |
| wine | A |
| Strabo said Gracchus you are strange tonight | L |
| The Legion is the Legion it's all right | L |
| If these new men are slovenly in your thinking | M |
| God damn it you'll not better them by drinking | M |
| They all try Strabo trust their hearts and hands | D |
| The Legion is the Legion while Rome stands | D |
| And these same men before the autumn's fall | N |
| Shall bang old Vercingetorix out of Gaul | N |
Robert Graves
(1)
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