Time and time they came with the deep-mouthed German roar,
Time and time they broke like the wave upon the shore;
For better men were there
From Limerick and Clare,
And who will take the gateway of Cremona?
Prince Eugène has watched, and he gnaws his nether lip;
Prince Eugène has cursed as he saw his chances slip:
‘Call off! Call off!’ he cried,
‘It is nearing eventide,
And I fear our work is finished in Cremona.’
Says Wauchop to McAulliffe, ‘Their fire is growing slack.’
Says Major Dan O’Mahony, ‘It is their last attack;
But who will stop the game
While there’s light to play the same,
And to walk a short way with them from Cremona?’
And so they snarl behind them, and beg them turn and come,
They have taken Neuberg’s standard, they have taken Diak’s drum;
And along the winding Po,
Beard on shoulder, stern and slow
The Kaiserlics are riding from Cremona.
Just two hundred Irish lads are shouting on the wall;
Four hundred more are lying who can hear no slogan call;
But what’s the odds of that,
For it’s all the same to Pat
If he pays his debt in Dublin or Cremona.
Says General de Vaudray, ‘You’ve done a soldier’s work!
And every tongue in France shall talk of Dillon and of Burke!
Ask what you will this day,
And be it what it may,
It is granted to the heroes of Cremona.’
‘Why, then,’ says Dan O’Mahony, ‘one favour we entreat,
We were called a little early, and our toilet’s not complete.
We’ve no quarrel with the shirt,
But the breeches wouldn’t hurt,
For the evening air is chilly in Cremona.’
THE STORMING PARTY
Said Paul Leroy to Barrow,
‘Though the breach is steep and narrow,
If we only gain the summit
Then it’s odds we hold the fort.
I have ten and you have twenty,
And the thirty should be plenty,
With Henderson and Henty
And McDermott in support.’
Said Barrow to Leroy,
‘It’s a solid job, my boy,
For they’ve flanked it, and they’ve banked it,
And they’ve bored it with a mine.
But it’s only fifty paces
Ere we look them in the faces;
And the men are in their places,
With their toes upon the line.’