Old Timers
Old Timers - meaning Summary
A Lifetime of Forced Service
The speaker presents himself as a perennial, unwilling soldier whose service stretches mythically across history. He claims roles under Xerxes, Miltiades, Caesar, Charles XII and Napoleon, always pressed into labor—cleaner, teamster, horseshoer—before recounting service for Lincoln and losing an arm at Spottsylvania. The poem frames war as a relentless force that compels ordinary men into duty, erasing individuality while linking past and present conscription.
Read Complete AnalysesI am an ancient reluctant conscript. On the soup wagons of Xerxes I was a cleaner of pans. On the march of Miltiades' phalanx I had a haft and head; I had a bristling gleaming spear-handle. Red-headed Cæsar picked me for a teamster. He said, "Go to work, you Tuscan bastard, Rome calls for a man who can drive horses." The units of conquest led by Charles the Twelfth, The whirling whimsical Napoleonic columns: They saw me one of the horseshoers. I trimmed the feet of a white horse Bonaparte swept the night stars with. Lincoln said, "Get into the game; your nation takes you." And I drove a wagon and team and I had my arm shot off At Spottsylvania Court House. I am an ancient reluctant conscript.
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