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An Austrian army awfully arrayed.
Author: Unattributed Author
Source: poet arranged with "apt alliteration's artful aid", first appeared in "The Trifler", May 7, 1817, pr
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The king of France with twenty thousand men
Went up the hill, and then came down again:
The king of Spain with twenty thousand more
Climbed the same hill the French had climbed before.
Author: Unattributed Author
Source: from Sloane Manuscript 1489, written time of Charles I
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A thousand leagues of ocean, a company of kings,
You came across the watching world to show how heroes die.
When the splendour of your story
Builds the halo of its glory,
'Twill belt the earth like Saturn's rings
And diadem the sky.
Author: Unattributed Author
Source: "M.R.C.S.", in "Anzac", on Colonial Soldiers, 1919
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Terrible he rode alone,
With his yemen sword for aid;
Ornament it carried none
But the notches on the blade.
Author: Unattributed Author
Source: The Death Feud--An Arab War Song (st. 14), in "Tait's Edinburgh Magazine", July, 1850, translation s
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O Dormer, how can I behold thy fate,
And not the wonders of thy youth relate;
How can I see the gay, the brave, the young,
Fall in the cloud of war, and lie unsung!
In joys of conquest he resigns his breath,
And, filled with England's glory, smiles in death.
Author: Joseph Addison
Source: Campaign--To Philip Dormer
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"I cannot bear it!" said the pewter soldier. "I have shed pewter
tears! It is too melancholy! Rather let me go to the wars and
lose arms and legs! It would at least be a change. I cannot
bear it longer! Now, I know what it is to have a visit from
one's old thoughts, with what they may bring with them! I have
had a visit from mine, and you may be sure it is no pleasant
thing in the end; I was at last about to jump down from the
drawers."
Author: Hans Christian Andersen
Source: The Old House
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God and a soldier all people adore
In time of war, but not before;
And when war is over and all things are righted,
God is neglected and an old soldier slighted.
Author: Anonymous
Source: lines chalked on a sentry-bos on Europa Guard
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O little Force that in your agony
Stood fast while England girt her armour on,
Held high our honour in your wounded hands,
Carried our honour safe with bleeding feet--
We have no glory great enough for you,
The very soul of Britain keeps your day.
Author: Anonymous
Source: published in a London newspaper, 1917
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See! There is Jackson standing like a stone wall.
Author: Bernard Elliott Bee
Source: Battle of Manassas (Bull Run)
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Each year his mighty armies marched forth in gallant show,
Their enemies were targets, their bullets they were tow.
Author: Pierre Jean de Beranger
Source: Le Roi d'Yvetor, (translation by Thackeray "The King of Brentford")
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And the king of Israel answered and said, Tell him, Let not him
that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it
off.
Author: Bible
Source: I Kings (ch. XX, v. 11)
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When the action was over and they were returning with joy, they
recognized Nicanor, lying dead, in full armor.
Author: Bible
Source: II Maccabees (ch. XV, v. 28)
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Howbeit he refused to turn aside: wherefore Abner with the
hinder end of the spear smote him under the fifth rib, that the
spear came out behind him; and he fell down there, and died in
the same place: and it came to pass, that as many as came to the
place when Asahel fell down and died stood still.
Author: Bible
Source: II Samuel (ch. II, v. 23)
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And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he
went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam.
Author: Bible
Source: Judges (ch. XV, v. 8)
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The English Infantry is the most formidable in Europe, but
fortunately there is not much of it.
[Fr., L'infanterie anglaise est la plus redoubtable de l"Europe;
heureusement, il n'y en a pas beaucoup.]
Author: Thomas Robert duc d'Isly Bugeaud
Source: Oeuvres Militaires, collected by Weil
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You led our sons across the haunted flood,
Into the Canaan of their high desire--
No milk and honey there, but tears and blood
Flowed where the hosts of evil trod in fire,
And left a worse than desert where they passed.
Author: Amelia Josephine Burr
Source: To General Pershing
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Ay me! what perils do environ
The man that meddles with cold iron!
Author: Samuel Butler (1)
Source: Hudibras (pt. I, canto III, l. 1)
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Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylae!
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Don Juan (canto III, st. 86)
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His breast with wounds unnumber'd riven,
His back to earth, his face to heaven.
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Giaour (l. 675)
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For the army is a school in which the miser becomes generous, and
the generous prodigal; miserly soldiers are like monsters, but
very rarely seen.
Author: Cervantes (Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra)
Source: Don Quixote (ch. XXXIX)
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The knight's bones are dust,
And his good sword rust;
His soul is with the saints, I trust.
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Source: The Knight's Tomb
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How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blest!
. . . .
By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung.
Author: William Collins
Source: Ode, written in 1746
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Back of the boy is Wilson,
Pledge of his high degree,
Back of the boy is Lincoln,
Lincoln and Grant and Lee;
Back of the boy is Jackson,
Jackson and Tippecanoe,
Back of each son is Washington,
And the old red, white and blue!
Author: Edmund Vance Cooke
Source: Back of the Boy
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I have seen men march to the wars, and then
I have watched their homeward tread,
And they brought back bodies of living men,
But their eyes were fold and dead.
So, Buddy no matter what else the fame,
No matter what else the prize,
I want you to come back thru The Flame
With the boy-look still in your eyes!
Author: Edmund Vance Cooke
Source: The Boy-Look
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He stands erect; his slouch becomes a walk;
He steps right onward, martial in his air,
His form and movement.
Author: William Cowper
Source: Task (bk. IV, l. 638)
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