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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