Read "War and Peace" by Irving Sidney Dix online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
War is hell! -- war is hell! -- / This is what the war-men yell / Yet they love to be in hell, / Love to hear the iron hail / Strike, till even strong men quail; / Love the dying soldier's knell, / Ringing shot and shrieking shell, / Love to hear the battle-cry, / Love to see men fight and die / With the struggle in their eye -- / War is hell -- war is hell, -- / This is what the war-men yell.
War is wrong -- war is wrong; / This the burden of my song: / War is wrong -- war is wrong -- / Sound the pean, human tongue; / Let the message far be flung -- / Sound it, sound it heaven-high, / Sound it to the starry sky, / And Heaven, repeat the echoing, / Till all the earth of peace shall sing.
Peace loves day, but war loves night; / Peace loves calmness, war -- to fight / In the wrong or in the right; / Peace the hungry man gives bread, / War would give a stone instead; / Peace is honest -- not so war, / Crying -- any way is fair; / Peace loves life -- War loves the dead / With a halo overhead; / Peace pleads justice -- War cries might / In the wrong or in the right; / Peace pleads -- love your fellow-man, / War cries -- kill him if you can; / Peace no evil thing would slight, / Yet while daring dares not fight, / Knowing might makes nothing right; / Peace means liberty and life, / War means enmity and strife; / Peace means plenty, peace means power, / War means -- hell, and would devour / All who do not trust its power; / Peace means joy and love tomorrow, / War means hatred, death and sorrow; / Peace says -- Bless you -- men are brothers, / War says -- Damn you, and all others.
War is hell, war is hell! -- / This is what the war-men yell; / War is wrong, war is wrong -- / This the burden of my song; / War is wrong, war is wrong, / There never was a just one, / Never; / There never was a just one, / Never.
True as two from two leaves none, / True as days are never done, / True as rivers downward run, / True as heaven holds the sun, -- / War is wrong, war is wrong, / There never was a just one, / Never; / There never was a just one, / Never -- / Sound the message, human tongue, / Sound it, sound it heaven-high, / Sound it to the starry sky, / And Heaven, repeat the echoing / Till all the earth of peace shall sing.