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The
Charge of the
Light-Weight Brigade
(with the usual apologies
to Alfred, Lord T)
Half
a wit, half a wit,
Half a wit onward,
All in the interest of Death
Wrote the half dozen
"Forward, the Light-Weight Brigade!
"Charge for the wogs!" they said:
"Someone should parachute in,"
Wrote the half dozen.
"Forward,
the Light-Weight Brigade!"
Was National Review dismayed?
Not online, nor on sea.
Not for them the battle's brunt,
Their task to man the verbal front,
Where homebound warriors puff and preen,
Let others man the war machine.
Fuzzies
to the left of them,
Wuzzies to the right of them,
Pathans to the front of them,
(Wilier nor they ettled)
Into the jawing about Death,
Wrote the half dozen.
Gerunds
and adjectives flashed,
Densely faltered, then they crashed:
As for skeptics, "Off to jail" –
Except, puh-haps, a few from Yale.
Stoned on rhetoric they spoke
In Empire's tones, bankrupt and broke.
Then,
Derbyshire, the bold Leftenant,
Cried, "Empire's good, I mean, well, innit?"
And Buckley, in the guise of Oakes,
Commenced to tell some county jokes,
The sort that please the gents and dames,
But not the rude Américains.
Then someone went in, but not
Not the half dozen.
Scythians
to the left of them,
Bactrians to the right of them,
Into the Valley of Death
Wrote the half dozen.
Still things are looking really rosy:
Don't expect some new Firdausi.
Truth's kernel in its amplitude,
Attests to NR's Blimpitude.
Can
NR's glory ever fade –
In light of charges that they made?
All the world wondered:
Would Bill and Jonah soon take part
In bloodbaths Darby wished to start?
Would Darby soon set down his pen – The first to parachute
on in?
Not bloody likely.
September
20, 2001
Joseph R. Stromberg [send him
mail] is the JoAnn B. Rothbard Historian in Residence at the
Ludwig von Mises Institute and
a columnist for Antiwar.com.
Copyright
© 2001 LewRockwell.com
Joseph
Stromberg Archives
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