They pent up my soul
and bound me
Till life was a living death;
They struck the wine from my fingers,
The passion from my breath.
I reached my hands to
living;
They hurled me back into school,
And they said, “Go learn your lessons,
You innocent young fool.”
They yowled till they
woke the trumpets —
And the sword blade rent the plow,
And they said, “It is your duty
To die for your elders now.”
They cowered far from
the battle
As I went into the strife,
And I spilled my guts in the trenches
In the red dawn of my life.
And the elders named me
hero,
But more than their words and ire
Was the scent of a strange wild flower
There where I died in the mire.
