War and Peace

Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin’ up and down again! There’s no discharge in the war!

Back to the Army again, sergeant, Back to the Army again. Out o’ the cold an’ the rain.

When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.

There’s a legion that never was ’listed, That carries no colors or crest.

So ’ere’s to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your ’ome in the Soudan; You’re a pore benighted ’eathen but a first-class fightin’ man.

We aren’t no thin red ’eroes.

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck ’im out, the brute!” But it’s “Savior of ’is country” when the guns begin to shoot.

“What are the bugles blowin’ for?” said Files-on-Parade. “To turn you out, to turn you out,” the Color-Sergeant said.

They’ve taken of his buttons off an’ cut his stripes away, An’ they’re hangin’ Danny Deever in the mornin’.

When a voice behind me whispered low, “That fellow’s got to swing.”

That night your great guns, unawares, Shook all our coffins as we lay, And broke the chancel window-squares, We thought it was the Judgment Day.

What of the faith and fire within us Men who march away Ere the barn cocks say Night is growing gray, Leaving all that here can win us.

Yes; quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down You’d treat if met where any bar is, Or help to half-a-crown.

Many a soldier’s loving arms about this neck have cross’d and rested, Many a soldier’s kiss dwells on these bearded lips. The Wound-Dresser

Young man I think I know you—I think this face is the face of the Christ himself, Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.

Foemen at morn, but friends at eve— Fame or country least their care: (What like a bullet can undeceive!)

All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys.

What troops Of generous boys in happiness thus bred— Saturnians through life’s Tempe led, Went from the North and came from the South, With golden mottoes in the mouth, To lie down midway on a bloody bed.

Ef you want peace, the thing you’ve gut tu du Is jes’ to show you’re up to fightin’, tu.

Ez fer war, I call it murder— There you hev it plain an’ flat; I don’t want to go no furder Than my Testyment fer that.

I met Murder on the way— He had a mask like Castlereagh. 3

He tossed them human hearts to chew.

[Of Napoleon:] Whose game was empires and whose stakes were thrones, Whose table earth—whose dice were human bones.

Earth! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three, To make a new Thermopylae.