The Warrior Poem by Patrick Dennis

What horror it is to be a warrior!
All stripped of my deeds and my heart's worth
now that we have achieved universal peace - they say.
And war? Oh speak to me not of war
nor of the moguls of war. I am for peace
dead, soft and quiet on the stark horizons of dusk.

Yet I, I who am a warrior, branded thus
(thought I love and protect all men in my recollected pose)
Yet see! I wage, I wage, I wage fierce battle still
where ever they send me in the cause of peace.
(Oh, God, for forgetting and pardon grant me of the things I do)
I fight on for peace, locked in as I am
a fighter to the death, or for life
resurrected in the cause of peace.

As all warriors, I live not for my committed right,
nor for the wrong, nor for blood nor death;
only for the fight, soft sundown pose, the dusk peaceful dead
and vanquished sleep gone a'killing
in dreams of the recurring dawn.