War Song

In anguish we uplift
  A new unhallowed song:
The race is to the swift;
  The battle to the strong.

Of old it was ordained
  That we, in packs like curs,
Some thirty million trained
  And licensed murderers,

In crime should live and act,
  If cunning folk say sooth
Who flay the naked fact
  And carve the heart of truth.

The rulers cry aloud,
  "We cannot cancel war,
The end and bloody shroud
  Of wrongs the worst abhor,
And order's swaddling band:
  Know that relentless strife
Remains by sea and land
  The holiest law of life.
From fear in every guise,
  From sloth, from lust of pelf,
By war's great sacrifice
  The world redeems itself.
War is the source, the theme
  Of art; the goal, the bent
And brilliant academe
  Of noble sentiment;
The augury, the dawn
  Of golden times of grace;
The true catholicon,
  And blood-bath of the race."

We thirty million trained
  And licensed murderers,
Like zanies rigged, and chained
  By drill and scourge and curse
In shackles of despair
  We know not how to break —
What do we victims care
  For art, what interest take
In things unseen, unheard?
  Some diplomat no doubt
Will launch a heedless word,
  And lurking war leap out!

We spell-bound armies then,
  Huge brutes in dumb distress,
Machines compact of men
  Who once had consciences,
Must trample harvests down —
  Vineyard, and corn and oil;
Dismantle town by town,
  Hamlet and homestead spoil
On each appointed path,
  Till lust of havoc light
A blood-red blaze of wrath
  In every frenzied sight.

In many a mountain pass,
  Or meadow green and fresh,
Mass shall encounter mass
  Of shuddering human flesh;
Opposing ordnance roar
  Across the swaths of slain,
And blood in torrents pour
  In vain — always in vain,
For war breeds war again!

The shameful dream is past,
  The subtle maze untrod:
We recognise at last
  That war is not of God.