VIETNAM ANTHEM (1970)

VIETNAM ANTHEM (1970)

(The Legions of the Damned)

by Jack Hansen

“I do not like thee, Doctor Fell

The reason why I can not tell”*

When I was young

I sang this tune.

As I grow old,

I also sing

Yes, Virginia

There is a war

Oh yes

Oh yes

Oh some place far

Far far away

Where butterflies go to die

Peace

Peace in my time

Yes,

We came in search

For that elusive little fellow

From Kingdom Come we came

We Giants

We sometimes men

To rescue rice

To live with them

Them who knew no they

Who sought no peace

Who wondered why

We and they

Did not relate to them 

Rat-a-tat-tat

Rat-a-tat-tat

In the rubble a child still plays

Headlines scream

While people cry in the street

With questions

All the answers

Fall to Silence

Fall to Silence

These legions of the damned

With lament upon lament

Will climb back into a tent

A Home Away

Yet Not safely away

Jack Hansen is a (retired) former Viet Nam veteran, Head Master, Elementary Principal, Special Ed Teacher and Librarian who moved from Maine to Seattle in 1995.

I do not like thee, Doctor Fell is a nursery rhyme, said to have been written by satirical English poet Tom Brown in 1680.The anecdote associated with the origin of the rhyme is that when Brown was a student at the Christ Church, Oxford, he was caught doing mischief. The dean of Christ Church, John Fell (1625–1686), who later went on to become the Bishop of Oxford, expelled Brown; but offered to take him back if he passed a test. If Brown could extemporaneously translate the thirty-second epigram of Martial (a well known Roman epigramist), his expulsion would be cancelled. The epigram in Latin is as follows:

Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare;

Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te.

Brown made the impromptu English translation which became the verse:

I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,

The reason why - I cannot tell;

But this I know, and know full well,

I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.

Wikipedia

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