The Wasters

From The Times Dispatch, October 29, 1914. By D’Orsay Allen Poor.

There’s plenty of men who cannot sing,
    There’s plenty who cannot draw,
That we can spare, with never a care,
    To the terrible god of war.

There’s plenty of men who cannot paint,
    There’s plenty who cannot write,
To be sent to the front of the battles’ brunt
    To give up their lives in the fight.

There’s plenty of men we can easily spare
    The toilers and lowly ones,
Whose battle in life is a long, long strife—
    Let us feed such as these to the guns.

For it seems such a pity to waste a voice
    That adds to society’s joys;
So guard them well from the storms of hell
    And send on the working boys.

So gather your men from factory and farm,
    And hasten them into the strife,
So when they leave there is none to grieve
    Except mother and children and wife.