Battle of Edgehill
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money began to fail him, and an incomparable leader came to the front for the Parliament in the person of Oliver Cromwell, who was to finish the war and die, ten years later, something very like King of Great Britain.
With what feelings the men in either army must have looked upon each other before the first great battle!
Before Edgehill fight October, 1642.
Naked and grey the Cotswolds stand
Beneath the autumn sun,
And the stubble fields on either hand
Where Stour and Avon run,
There is no change in the patient land
That has bred us every one.
Naked and grey the Cotswolds stand
Beneath the autumn sun,
And the stubble fields on either hand
Where Stour and Avon run,
There is no change in the patient land
That has bred us every one.
She should have passed in cloud and fire
And saved us from this sin
Of war—red war—’twixt child and sire,
Household and kith and kin,
In the heart of a sleepy Midland shire,
With the harvest scarcely in.
And saved us from this sin
Of war—red war—’twixt child and sire,
Household and kith and kin,
In the heart of a sleepy Midland shire,
With the harvest scarcely in.
But there is no change as we meet at last
On the brow-head or the plain,
And the raw astonished ranks stand fast
To slay or to be slain
By the men they knew in the kindly past
That shall never come again—
On the brow-head or the plain,
And the raw astonished ranks stand fast
To slay or to be slain
By the men they knew in the kindly past
That shall never come again—
By the men they met at dance or chase,
In the tavern or the hall,
At the justice-bench and the market-place,
At the cudgel-play or brawl,
Of their own blood and speech and race,
Comrades or neighbours all!
In the tavern or the hall,
At the justice-bench and the market-place,
At the cudgel-play or brawl,
Of their own blood and speech and race,
Comrades or neighbours all!
More bitter than death this day must prove
Whichever way it go,
Whichever way it go,
