War! War! War!
The cry re-echoes from shore to shore
Of this, our Christian land;
A cry for men to unsheathe the sword,
For the demon of battle is abroad,
And the spark to a flame is fanned.

By those who, by word, and deed, and pen
Prey on the passions and fears of men,
And a madness has filled the air—
A madness that thirsts for a brother’s life,
A restless fever of war and strife,
Till we bow ’neath a deep despair;

For men caress the horrible thing,
And songs of praise in its glory sing,
And its mighty deeds rehearse,
As though ’twere an angel from heaven that came,
Instead of a devil of sin and shame—
A blessing instead of a curse.

War! War! War!
As they glibly talk the subject o’er,
Do they think of what it means?
Do they think of the heaps of mangled slain
Bestrewing the horrible battle plain,
Of the ghastly, terrible scenes?

Of the dying soldiers’ pitiful cry
For help, when no human help is nigh?
And, mixed with the cannon’s roar,
The groan of the dying, the barbarous yell,
The things that make up that earthly hell,
The glorious field of war?

Of the widow and children, whose piteous moan
Rises aloft from their cold hearth-stone;
Of the mother who mourns her boy;
Of the maiden, who weeps for a lover slain,
The touch of whose hand shall never again
Thrill her whole soul with joy?

Of the houseless, hungry, suffering band
In every city throughout the land,
Crying in vain for food,
While wealth and treasure—a costly price—
Are offered up as a sacrifice
On the cruel altar of blood?

War! War! War!
Treading in footsteps steeped in gore,
Bringing famine and misery;
Lighting the earth with a lurid flame,
And making even Christ’s holy name
But a ghastly mockery.

Would that we all who profess that name
Would ponder well on the shin and shame,
On the terrible guilt, before,
With a false desire and selfish aim,
And a feverish thirst for that thing called fame,
We plunge in the sea of war.

Alfred Charles Jewitt, April 1878
In Lays and Legends, 1880