Luke North: Songs of the Great Adventure — 1917

ARMAGEDDON
This is no Armageddon.
This is a squabble of thieves.
The murderous hosts of Europe
Have nothing to gain or lose.
Esdraelon's plain will redden
When the masters meet the slaves.
This is no Armageddon.

That will be Death against Life
That will be Manhood's struggle
To end the robber strife.
This is a tradesman's war
Powder and guns and provisions
Watch how the prices soar.
This is not Armageddon.

This is the broker's gamble
With interest at 80 per cent.
A money lord's scramble.
Hear the cash register jingle
At every soul's descent
And the pulse of the market tingle —
This is Greed's game with Death.

This is a newspaper war —
Its pawns driven to slaughter
And lured by the daily press.
No one hates the German,
No one hates the French,
No one hates the English,
Only the daily press.

This is no Armageddon
This is the christians' bluff
All the captain's praying
That Greed may keep its clutch
And stay the Armageddon
Delay the real war
Of Man against Money.

This is no Armageddon
This is no test of strength
This is the feeding of flesh
To death machines
That rip and tear and mangle
"The human form divine"
"Made in God's image."

This is for broken treaties
That will avenge broken lives.
Wait till the hosts of Darkness
Face the powers of Light
Then the world-struggle!
And may Death alone win
If Right fail for Might!


WAR'S MASKS

War masks itself in glittering pomp and tinsel,
With blare of brass and pageantry of trampling troops
Cheered by aimless women who love gold braid
And smirk on empty-pated automatons
That strut like dunghill roosters and swell
With mindless vanity vacuously to obey.
War's mask is this, but at its heart lies
Cold, mechanical, calculating Profit.

War lures with murder, blood, and pillage,
With rape and loot and all that stirs the passing
Human brute to primitive ferocity;
Envisages with lust of gluttony
To lure the jungle avatars of men.
War's lure is this, but at its heart lies gold
For bankers, bonds for financiers, and profit
For crafty brokers of war munitions.

War hypnotizes by sorceries of words
And fatuous phrases. Nor Patriotism, the flag,
My Country, Prosperity, Progress, nor a thousand
Like noises would Profit budge an inch
To serve — because Profit knows them for what
They are, but empty sound to awe the mass
To insane murder for Profit's profit. War
Enchants the weak with mercantile palaver.

War masks in red hot courage, in glorious
Death for fatherland and home — lies infernal!
(Devised of church and press and school
To pay their keep by wealth) that snare the weak
And ignorant to hack and kill each other
And stand as targets for machine guns
While Profit reaps fresh harvests
And validates again its titles to land.

War's public attitude is Balance of Power,
Trade Supremacy, Markets of the World,
National Integrity; its pith and purpose is
To refasten the chains of industrial
Slavery on toiling millions, to exploit
Little tradesmen and petty merchants
And hoard still vaster piles of wealth
In never loosening grip of Greed.

To break the wave of social discontent
War masks in frothy horror and black fear;
Dangles huge cruelties and crimson
Carnivals of pain to fascinate the
Sensual emotionalists and snare souls weak
Of human courage aborn of thought
And sympathy, sans manly daring
To fight for Man instead of kings and profit.




WAR WILL NOT CEASE

Let warriors be reassured
Their occupation is lasting —
But men will not always
Kill each other.

There will be no peace
Till the last lie
Of religion and philosophy
Has been uncovered.

Let the fighters cease twaddle
Of the enervation of peace.
Greed will remain a worthy foe
For many centuries.

There will be no peace
Till man is free
Of all the superstitions
Of church and state.

Let the heroes be content.
There are monsters and dragons
Of unknown spheres to slay —
When man has ceased to kill himself.

There will be no peace
For courageous men
Till the last veil is torn
From the visage of Reality.



THE REAL WAR

That ye strive for the real
As ye battle for the false.
That ye bleed for freedom
As ye fight for chains.

That ye dare for Man
As ye die for God.
That ye slay your foe
As ye kill your kin.

That men who think and feel
Be as bold as the shallow.
That sympathy and thought
Rob us not of manhood.


THE NEW WAR

The new war will be
For men instead of markets,
For life instead of profit,
For love instead of hate —
To dethrone rulers and gain
The earth and its fruit
For the Many!




A FLAGGERAL

The fondest flag is only a rag —
  But a man is a soul!
    Tho it be of silk
    It is poverty's ilk
  That pays its toll —
    Men hack and kill
    At Capital's will
  Death take and give
  So a few can live
    On the blood and dure
    Of the poor.
  It's a rich man's flag
  And only a rag —
But a human life is a soul!

The silkiest flag is only a rag —
  But a man can feel!
    The scrawniest cat
    Or the skulkiest rat
  Can breathe and suffer,
  But a flag is tougher'
     Than the heart of Greed
Making war for profit!

They wave the flag, a gaudy rag —
  They raise a shout
  And the dupes march out
    To murder each other
      At $13 a month!

  The proudest flag
  Is a senseless rag —
But a man knows joy and pain!
  A rag can't feel,
  But its wavers steal
The land of the "foreign foe,"
  While the men who fight, 
  Give Greed its might,
Get what for their pain and woe?
  Disemployed at home
  Blanket-stiffs they roam —
Driven off the naked earth as bums
  In the name of a flag
  That's only a rag,
    But is fondled more
Than human babes in the slums!

  Who honor the flag
  As a sacred rag
Dishonor woman and man!
  Their guns to sell
  Turn earth to hell
On human life they prey!
  And the red bar's stain
Is the human flood
The heart's own blood —
  The brand of Cain!

O, a child's lost joy
Or a broken toy,
  Of sanctity has more
  Than profit's flag of war!


ALL THIS KILLING
 
Cowardice lurks in killing
Weakness dogs
Fear skulks
Behind it.
Logically it is futile
To kill — boyish, brutish
Not manly.

It may be unavoidable
To kill —
A mad dog or a mad king
Or a mad financier
Or a mad policeman —
But weakness and fear
Lurk in killing.

It is hideous to kill
And unnecessary.
Nor health nor strength
Nor beauty can ensue.
Weakness and fear
Are the net
Products of killing.

There are other ways
To be passionate
And courageous,
To risk life and feel
The shock and thrill
Or high daring'
Than by killing people.


THE LESSER EVIL

War to abolish Poverty
Is better than peace
That maintains Privilege.


PEACE AND WAR

Profit takes heavier toll
Of human life
In peace than in war —
Will drain the heart's blood
Of more men, women, children
Starve their bodies and minds,
Vampirize their souls —
Ruthlessly and needlessly slay,
In America,
To fatten dividends
Of railroad, factory, and mine,
More, far more than will die
On the European battlefields!


ITS SHAME

This war's a wanton hussies' bawdy game.
Usury's murderous lust of gain — its aim
No higher than a harlot's lust of gaud.
Each power aloot — oblivious to shame!


ITS STRUT

War's fatuous strut — its hate and rage so crass,
Gold braid, emotion, pompous death en masse —
Is all a wolfish, strident, shrewish game,
The soldier but an automatic ass.


THE LIE

The Moving Finger writes with crimson stain
Its record red of every human gain
In christendom — the theologic lie! —
That growth can only come thru pain.


SLAY YOUR MASTERS

Ye are taught to hate,
Ye are drilled to kill —
One Another!
Ye are bidden:
Servants obey your masters.

But the nucleus stirs in the life cell,
The prisoned plant bursts granite
To reach the light,
The hidden God that man is
Awakes!

Above the rattle of falling chains
Hear ye the voice of Manhood —
Servants arise,
And slay your masters!

Hear ye the boldness, the trueness, the faith
And the thunders
Of awakened Men:

"Kill only the foeman!
Kill boldly, O yeomen,
All who would exploit,
Would rob, or deny —
Would palaver and cheat
By law and deceit
Any child of its food,
Any soul, any man or his mate
Of whatever is earned
In the sweat of the brow!"



THE EUCHARIST

Again the christians gather for the Host,
The millions slay to please their Holy Ghost
And make of Eucharist a real feast
For God who smiles when murder riots most.



IF WE MUST
Since murderous war, invoked by tradesmen's greed,
To battle hells the landless millions speed;
If war must be the common lot — O men
Awake! and battle for the common need!

Next: New Songs