Why We Fight

This is the thing we fight: A cry of terror in the night; A ship on work of mercy bent— A carrier of the sick and maimed— Beneath the cruel waters sent, And those that did it, unashamed. A woman who had tried to fill A mother's place; had nursed the ill And soothed the troubled brows of pain And earned the dying's grateful prayers, Before a wall by soldiers slain! And such a poor pretext was theirs! Old women pierced by bayonets grim And babies slaughtered for a whim, Cathedrals made the sport of shells, No mercy, even for a child, As though the imps of all the hells Were crazed with drink and running wild. All this we fight—that some day when Good sense shall come again to men, Our children's children may not read This age's history thus defamed And find we served a selfish creed And ever be of us ashamed!