Warmongers

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The Drum

I hate that drum’s discordant sound,

Parading round, and round, and round:

To thoughtless youth it pleasure yields,

And lures from cities and from fields,

To sell their liberty for charms

Of tawdry lace, and glittering arms;

And when Ambition’s voice commands,

To march, and fight, and fall, in foreign lands.

I hate that drum’s discordant sound,

Parading round, and round, and round:

To me it talks of ravag’d plains,

And burning towns, and ruin’d swains,

And mangled limbs, and dying groans,

And widow’s tears, and orphans moans;

And all that misery’s hand bestows,

To fill the catalogue of human woes.

-John Scott of Amwell

CPW