All murderers are punished—unless they
Kill in large numbers, and to the sound of Trumpets!²
A good army commander doesn’t need special qualities,
On the contrary they cannot have the highest attributes:
Love, Poetry, Tenderness, and philosophic inquiring Doubt.³
Only the Defeated and Deserters go to war:
Cowards that run away and enlist!⁴
We are lonely beings, Scarred by swords, Wounded
By iron, Sated with battle-deeds, and Wearied by blades.⁵
The hapless soldier’s Sigh runs in Blood down palace-walls.⁶
They send forth Men to battle but no such men return, and
Home to claim their welcome come Ashes in an urn.⁷
Where are the Joys for which our Children
Charred, multiply the carcasses of war?⁸
Are they really evil of heart? Or what Lies & Threats
Lead them on the long march from their Home, and
Would they not really rather stay there in Peace?⁹
Summer grasses are all that remains
Of Soldier Dreams.¹⁰
¹ Alfred Lichtenstein, Leaving for the Front
² Voltaire
³ Leo Tolstoy tr. Louise & Aylmer Maude, War and Peace
⁴ Henry David Thoreau, Walden
⁵ Anglo-Saxon Riddle tr. Richard Hamer
⁶ William Blake, London
⁷ Aeschylus tr. Philip Vellacott, Agamemnon
⁸ Ion Caraion tr. Dorian & Urdang, Song for the Occupation Time
⁹ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
¹⁰ Basho tr. Lucian Stark & Takashi Ikemoto, Summer Grasses