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WHY? (THE SPIRIT OF CIVILIZATION TO THE GOD OF WAR), by                    
First Line: Why have I builded me cities fair
Last Line: Am left, and ever asking -- why?
Subject(s): Civilization; Progress; War


Why have I builded me cities fair,
With castle and humble cot?
Why have I planted and garnered with care
Earth's treasures so harshly got?

Why have I mined her precious gold
To fashion me jewels rare?
Why have I hewed her forests old
To build highways and harbors there?

Why have I gathered the mind's best thought
Of the Artist, in pictures rich --
Or of Sculptor's gift so nobly wrought
To adorn the Cathedral's niche?

If all my people are filled with Hate
And children are left to die --
If wives and mothers meet awful fate
And the feeble shall helpless cry --

If famine and sword and anguish
Shall take their toll of spoils,
Of what avail to languish
Through Humanities' endless toils?

Of what avail is charities' lore
Of conquered disease and sin,
If you have loosed your Dogs of War
And the snarling brutes rush in?

Then I alone am left to gaze
On the waste of life and mourn
That unleashed passion's fearful craze
Has manhood's flower so rudely torn --

Only the whispering ghostly winds
In the tall towers' ruins sigh,
And I, alone, of all my kind
Am left, and ever asking -- Why?





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