Classic Poem

Grub for gold with prisoned life;
Mint it at the price of breath;
Let it bear the stamp of strife;
Let it purchase power of death:
Life and gold, one sweated bar,
Lavish it on waste of war.

Dig the gold with good men's toil;
Leave the holes for dead men's graves;
Starve the growth, and hoard the spoil
Stored in trenches, heaped on waves:
Murder, lurking underground,
Till the trump of Azrael sound.

Drain the gold, and forge the chain;
Drain the strength, and bind the race;
Rouse the brute in man to reign;
Train him for his princely place:
Flunkey to a nation's pride
In the lust of fratricide.