A million young workmen straight and strong lay stiff on the grass and roads, <br />And the million are now under soil and their rottening flesh will in the years feed roots of blood-red roses. <br />Yes, this million of young workmen slaughtered one another and never saw their red hands. <br />And oh, it would have been a great job of killing and a new and beautiful thing under the sun if the million knew why they hacked and tore each other to death. <br />The kings are grinning, the Kaiser and the czar—they are alive riding in leather-seated motor cars, and they have their women and roses for ease, and they eat fresh-poached eggs for breakfast, new butter on toast, sitting in tall water-tight houses reading the news of war. <br />I dreamed a million ghosts of the young workmen rose in their shirts all soaked in crimson … and yelled: <br />God damn the grinning kings, God damn the kaiser and the czar.<br /><br />Carl Sandburg<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-million-young-work-men/
