A Soldiers Tale
The scum of the earth you called us
In your fancy boots and clothes,
But it was us who faced the guns
And on your orders died
For a shilling in our pocket
And a flogging on our back.
Us Tommies, English, Scots and Welsh
Aye, and Irish too, us lions of the Isles
We stood and fought around the world
And saw how big it was
And when we were finished
A quarter of it was ours.
What a way to live and die
For us poor boys in red
But we took our shilling
And our floggings too,
And when you sent us off to war
We fought and mostly won.
When we stood in that thin red line
We showed them how to fight,
Then supped and tupped
In every place we went.
Yet all the time you treated us
Like shite beneath your feet.
But we saw through you toffs
With your boots and fancy accents,
Your polished schoolboy airs.
Us Tommies, us lions,
We'd seen it all before.
When the cannon and the muskets roared
It was us who stood and faced them
And on your orders died.
But when the guns fell silent
And our blood soaked the earth
It was you who got the medals
And us who paid the price.
poem by Paul Anthony
Added by Poetry Lover
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