Waterlosers
by cricketjeff on November 16, 2009. © Jeff Green, All rights reserved
Napoleon came to an end
At the hands of a Nosy old friend;
He found Waterloo
Was a bit of a do,
He ought to have been in Ostend!
When Wellington went into battle
He treated his soldiers like cattle
But while he kept winning
The soldiers kept grinning,
If nothing can puzzle you, that’ll!
When Blücher arrived on the scene
French Boney was turning quite green;
His old soldier’s wiles
Fell victim to piles,
And longing to see Josephine!
So now we don’t all speak in French,
The Empire collapsed in a stench
King Louis returned
To his riches, unearned.
Napoleon’s back on the bench!
Saint Helena’s right out at sea,
So no-one could set Boney free.
He died in his bed,
Not punctured by lead,
An outcome he didn’t foresee!
Soon Nosy became the PM,
A fighter for “Us” against “Them”
And even his story
Did not end in glory
But is it my place to condemn?
Von Blücher was old when they fought,
He’d always seen warfare as sport.
Retired to Prussia,
Got dug up by Russia,
We all of us end up as nought.
And now it’s the end of my writing,
A story of fussing and fighting.
Real wars aren’t so funny,
Their outcome’s not sunny,
But poetry’s not as exciting!
Author notes
Nosy was what the British soldiers called Wellington while Boney was their name
for Bonaparte.
Bonaparte was exclied by the British (to whom he surrendered to avoid the
guillotine) to Saint Helena where he seems to have died of Arsenic poisoning
caused by the damn air getting to the dyes in the wallpaper in his bedroom.
Wellington became a Tory Prime Minister, a rather hard line one.
There was a dance the night before the battle for the allied high rankers and
wives etc. in Ostend.
von Blücher’s tomb in East Prussia (now Poland) was dug up by Russian soldiers
at the end of WW2 his skull being used as a football.
I know St Helena is usually pronounced “sent hell EE na” but just for this poem
please excuse the alternate ” sent HELL en er”.
English