La Colombe-The Dove

Why all these bugles cry

These squads of young men drill

To kill and to be killed

Stood waiting by the train

Why the orders loud and hoarse

Why the engine's groaning cough

As it strains to drag us all

Into the holocaust

Why crowds who sing and cry

And shout and fling us flowers

And trade their rights for ours

To murder and to die

The dove has torn her wing

So no more songs of love

We are not here to sing

We're here to kill the dove

Why must this moment come

When childhood has to die

When hope shrinks to a sigh

And speech into a drum

Why are they pale and still

Young boys trained over night

Concripts payed to kill

And dressed in gray to fight

These rainclouds massing tight

This train load battle bound

This moving burial ground

Goes thundering to the night

The dove has torn her wing

So no more songs of love

We are not here to sing

We're here to kill the dove

Why statues towering grave

Above the last defeat

Old words and lies repeat

Across a new made grave

And why the same still birds

That victory always brought

These hours of glory bought

By men with mounds of earth

Dead ash without a spark

Where cities used to be

Where guns probe every spark

And crush it into dust

The dove has torn her wing

So no more songs of love

We are not here to sing

We're here to kill the dove

And while your face undone

With jagged lines of tears

That gave in those first years

All the peace I'd ever want

Your body in the gloom

The platform fading back

Your shadow on the track

A flower upon a tomb

And why these days ahead

When I must let you cry

And live prepared to die

And to....

The dove has torn her wing

So no more songs of love

We are not here to sing

We're here to kill the dove