Paradox

It may sound like a paradox,

But like a paradox it's true

That nations fill the world with war

-- Men never do.

No man would drop a deadly bomb

Upon a neighbor's place --

Regardless of the other's creed

Or politics or race.

Yet nations goaded by greed

Will push their boarders where

Another nation dwells in peace,

And rain death from the air.

No man would strike another down

For some imagined wrong

Then celebrate his victory with

The hollowness of song.

But nations on a thin pretext

Will devastate a land

Then bring back honored armies

To the blaring of a band.

No man would murder children

In the shelter of a home,

Especially if he were a man

With children of his own.

Yet nations cross a border . . .

With their kinsmen safe behind . . .

To ravish babes and mothers

Of their very human kind.

No man would scourge and dispossess

A fellow who had found

An honest place of shelter

On a private bit of ground.

Yet nations rob and plunder

Any poor and hapless race,

As they bless their deeds of carnage

With an high imperial grace.

No man would wreck another's

Sacred treasure of the heart

That a life's been spent in building

From a dim and distant start.

Yet a nation will despoil the things,

With hard and cruel face,

That have come down through the centuries

As the legacy of race.

Yes, it may sound like a paradox,

But like a paradox it's true

That nations fill the world with war

. . . Men never do!

(Copyright, 1940)