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