Gustaf Cederström, Swedish
“Hey Look, Everybody! I Found My Hat!,” 1923
Oil on canvas
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THROWBACK THURSDAY: MASTERPIECE #2579 (11/16/20)
Info, or perhaps links that point to more info, about this artist can be found here, here (archived if necessary), here (Google translated), here, and here (can be read in full for free on Fridays), perhaps in addition to what’s in his Wikipedia page (Google translated Swedish Wikipedia page has more).
/// The Swede, Magnus Stenbock, here is seated
on his horse facing foes he defeated.
The Danes at Helsingborg,
which now smells like a morgue
from horse corpses left when they retreated.
/// Magnus fans his hat. This act dispels
just a bit of the foul wind-borne smells.
The sickening stench is
from bodies in trenches,
and those purposely thrown into wells.
/// Their foes chose to leave nothing behind
that was useful for Stenbock to find.
So thousands of horses,
(according to sources),
were slaughtered. A plague was designed.
/// Any canons the Danes couldn’t take
had been spiked for security’s sake.
So though Sweden’s victorious,
what was left wasn’t glorious,
for, in war, life and death are at stake.
/// Those retreating Danes still couldn’t kill
the reports of Stenbock’s wartime skill.
He was famed in his age.
(Wikipedia page
would, if printed, a whole volume fill.)
/// The young boy was a battlefield drummer.
In percussion a real up-and-comer.
He set pace with his beat
for the men’s marching feet.
Killed in action the following summer.
/// Magnus snatched off the drummer-boy’s hat
and then held it high over the brat.
“Give it back,” cried the kid.
Magnus did what he did
so he couldn’t against Danes combat.
/// He’d consumed a whole barrel of rum,
which had rendered him reckless and dumb.
Then he held back his hair
and bent downward to where
he could puke in the drummer-boy’s drum.