At Viscount Nelson’s lavish funeral, <br />While the mob milled and yelled about St Paul’s, <br />A General chatted with an Admiral: <br /> <br />“One of your colleagues, Sir, remarked today <br />That Nelson’s exit, though to be lamented, <br />Falls not inopportunely, in it’s way” <br /> <br />“He was a thorn in our flesh’, came the reply- <br />‘The mot bird-witted, unaccountable, <br />Odd little runt that ever I did spy”. <br /> <br />“One arm, one peeper, vain as Pretty Poll, <br />A meddler too, in foreign politics <br />And gave his heart in pawn to a plain moll. <br /> <br />“He would dare lecture us Sea Lords, and then <br />Would treat his ratings as though men of honour <br />And play leap-frog with his midshipmen! <br /> <br />We tried to box him down, but up he popped, <br />And when he banged Napoleon on the Nile <br />Became too much the hero to be dropped. <br /> <br />“You’ve heard that Copenhagen ‘blind eye’ story? <br />We’d tied him to Nurse Parker’s apron- strings- <br />By G-d, he snipped them through and snatched the glory!” <br /> <br />“Yet”, cried the General, ‘sic-and-twenty sail <br />Captured or sunk by him off Trafalgar- <br />That writes a handsome finis to the tale” <br /> <br />“Handsome enough. The seas are England’s now. <br />That fellow’s foibles need no longer plague us <br />He died most creditably, I’ll allow.” <br /> <br />“And Sir, the secret of his victories?” <br />“By his unServicelike, familiar ways, Sir, <br />He made the whole Fleet love him, damn his eyes!”<br /><br />Robert Graves<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/1805/
