Wine, Water and Song

<h2><SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_20" title="20"> </SPAN>The Rolling English Road</h2> <div class="poetry width31"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="line"><span class="upper-case">Before</span> the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,<br/></div> <div class="line">The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.<br/></div> <div class="line">A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,<br/></div> <div class="line">And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;<br/></div> <SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_21" title="21"> </SPAN><div class="line">A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread<br/></div> <div class="line">The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.<br/></div> </div><div class="stanza"> <div class="line">I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,<br/></div> <div class="line">And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;<br/></div> <div class="line">But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed<br/></div> <div class="line">To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,<br/></div> <div class="line">Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,<br/></div> <div class="line">The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.<br/></div> </div><div class="stanza"> <SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_22" title="22"> </SPAN><div class="line">His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run<br/></div> <div class="line">Behind him; and the hedges all strengthing in the sun?<br/></div> <div class="line">The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,<br/></div> <div class="line">But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.<br/></div> <div class="line">God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear<br/></div> <div class="line">The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.<br/></div> </div><div class="stanza"> <div class="line">My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,<br/></div> <div class="line">Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,<br/></div> <SPAN class="pagenum" name="Page_23" title="23"> </SPAN><div class="line">But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,<br/></div> <div class="line">And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;<br/></div> <div class="line">For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,<br/></div> <div class="line">Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.<br/></div> </div></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />