The poem
When we might make with happy heart This world a paradise, With bombs we blast brave men apart, With napalm carbonize. Where we might till the sunny soil, And sing for joy of life, We spend our treasure and our toil In bloody strife.
The fields of wheat are sheening gold, The flocks have silver fleece; The signs are sweetly manifold Of plenty, praise and peace. Yet see! The sky is like a cowl Where grimy toilers bore The shards of steel that feed the foul Red maw of War.
Instead of butter give us guns; Instead of sugur, shells. Devoted mothers, bear your sons To glut still hotter hells. Alas! When will mad mankind wake To banish evermore, And damn for God in Heaven's sake Mass Murder--WAR?