Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
Swift-blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter;
Make plain to them the excellence of killing,
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.
Mother, whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
Stephen Crane.
LINES
A LITTLE ink more or less!
It surely can’t matter?
Even the sky and the opulent sea,
The plains and the hills, aloof,
Hear the uproar of all these books.
But it is only a little ink more or less.
A MAN said to the universe,
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”
THE Wayfarer,
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
“Ha,” he said,
“I see that none has passed here
In a long time.”
Later he saw that each weed
Was a singular knife.
“Well,” he mumbled at last,
“Doubtless there are other roads.”
“HAVE you ever made a just man?”
“Oh, I have made three,” answered God,
“But two of them are dead,
And the third —
Listen! listen,
And you will hear the thud of his defeat.”
THREE little birds in a row
Sat musing.
A man passed near that place.
Then did the little birds nudge each other.
They said, “He thinks he can sing.”
They threw back their heads to laugh.
With quaint countenances
They regarded him.
They were very curious,
Those three little birds in a row.
A YOUTH, in apparel that glittered,
Went to walk in a grim forest.
There he met an assassin
Attired all in garb of old days;
He, scowling through the thickets,
And dagger poised quivering,
Rushed upon the youth.
“Sir,” said the latter,
“I am enchanted, believe me,
To die thus
In this mediæval fashion,
According to the best legends;
Ah, what joy!”
Then took he the wound, smiling,
And died, content.
A MAN saw a ball of gold in the sky;
He climbed for it,
And eventually he achieved it;
It was clay.
Now this is the strange part:
When the man went to the earth
And looked again,
Lo, there was the ball of gold.
Now this is the strange part:
It was a ball of gold.
Aye, by the heavens, it was a ball of gold.
“THINK as I think,” said a man,
“Or you are abominably wicked;
You are a toad.”
And after I had thought of it,
I said, “I will, then, be a toad.”