Sonnet 22 Battle of Marston Moor Ii

I let a boy, a Roundhead* boy, to live... I knocked him down, and said, 'stay down my boy! You're fourteen, and your mother waits to give You letters** - HEY THEN! THAT is not a TOY!' (For he'd stuck me a bit wi' a little knife,) It only hurted summat, so I took it, And said, 'stay DOWN! THESE words are worth your life!' He cried a bit -- I took his hand and shook it, Then, I pulled out the knife, and gave it back. And knocked him out, then, and left him for dead, 'You'll wake up well alive, lad!' Then a 'crack'! A Roundhead* bullet took me in the head. So, I lay down a bit, to rest me eyes, And I am lying there still, I must surmise... * 'Roundhead' was the Kingsmen's name for the Parliamentarian forces of Oliver Cromwell ** it was not uncommon, after a battle, once the boys were furloughed, for family to send the boys back with letters for the men who still fought