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I once had a friend

The best of friends

Anyone could ever have:

We marched together long

With the sixth, legio Victrix:

We toiled hard like mules

Together 'neath the rain

Building Hadrian's great wall...

We drew swords together

In the ranks of the first Parthica

And shared a water-skin

In the burning deserts of Nisibis...

We were legionnaires

Under the Aquila of Rome -

We fought and died

Laughed and cast the die:

We, the muli mariani

A haggard band of brothers!

In Carnuntum, in 60 A.D.

We were with the fourteenth

That owned the field that day

When Boudicca's braves

Faced a blood-swathed defeat!

We raised a right-arm hail

To Emperor Augustus

Inspecting the ranks

When we of the fifteenth Apollinaris

Made the Jews rue the day!

We were legionnaires

Under the Aquila of Rome -

We fought and died

Laughed and cast the die:

We, the muli mariani

A haggard band of brothers!