“Is that the Three-and-Twentieth, Strabo mine, <br />Marching below, and we still gulping wine?” <br />From the sad magic of his fragrant cup <br />The red-faced old centurion started up, <br />Cursed, battered on the table. “No,” he said, <br />“Not that! The Three-and-Twentieth Legion’s dead, <br />Dead in the first year of this damned campaign— <br />The Legion’s dead, dead, and won’t rise again. <br />Pity? Rome pities her brave lads that die, <br />But we need pity also, you and I, <br />Whom Gallic spear and Belgian arrow miss, <br />Who live to see the Legion come to this, <br />Unsoldierlike, slovenly, bent on loot, <br />Grumblers, diseased, unskilled to thrust or shoot. <br />O, brown cheek, muscled shoulder, sturdy thigh! <br />Where are they now? God! watch it struggle by, <br />The sullen pack of ragged ugly swine. <br />Is that the Legion, Gracchus? Quick, the wine!” <br />“Strabo,” said Gracchus, “you are strange tonight. <br />The Legion is the Legion; it’s all right. <br />If these new men are slovenly, in your thinking, <br />God damn it! you’ll not better them by drinking. <br />They all try, Strabo; trust their hearts and hands. <br />The Legion is the Legion while Rome stands, <br />And these same men before the autumn’s fall <br />Shall bang old Vercingetorix out of Gaul.”<br /><br />Robert Graves<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/an-old-twenty-third-man/
