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.
