Classic Poem

“I do not want to speak of it,” he said,
And told me that the war was a disgrace,
A blot, I think he said, upon the face
Of Progress. Man must hang his head
Each morning when he reads of men left dead
Upon the blood-soaked fields. Only one place
Preserves the high ideals of the race—
America, where bullets turn to bread.

“Why, look,” he warmed up to his noble text,
“Look at this country's great neutrality;
And how we've prospered in it. If that strife
Continues through this summer and the next,
No one can tell how prosperous we'll be.
Just one more year—and we'll be made for life!”