If we must fight...

[jasi2006]

"If we must fight, then let us go to war
only for what our hearts tell us is rght
withing the sight of God: why should we fight
to kill against our principles? What's more,
destroying men (who have not wronged us) for
imperialistic gains...condemns our might
the whole world ove and creates a plight
which mocks our pose as freedom's guarantor!

If we must die, then let our corpses be
not shameful symbols of our faithfulness
to a false cause, but a necropolis
of truth and right as well as loyalty!
Though slain as traitors, god will glorify
all those who will NOT kill for tyranny!"

B. Arnold ( friend)

[malaise]

1. That's a reworking of the Jamaican Claude McKay's classic

If we must die.
In 1919 there was a wave of race riots consisting mainly of white assaults on black neighborhoods in a dozen American cities. Jamaican-born writer Claude McKay responded by writing this sonnet, urging his comrades to fight back. It had a powerful impact, then and later.

http://www.wsu.edu/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/mckay.html

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

[jasi2006]

2. Thanks for posting.

My friend died about 15 years ago. I don't know if he ever read McKay's classic.

[malaise]

3. Clearly he did

:D

[jasi2006]

4. No room for coincidence, huh?

At any rate, I like both the works.