I am no callow Christian, <br />No pus-paunched prelate, I, <br />I hope not for salvation, <br />Nor fear the day, I'll die <br /> <br />In wantonness of appetite, <br />In women, wine and war, <br />In fire and blood and rapine <br />In these my pleasures are. <br /> <br />I love the smell of horse dung, <br />The sight of corpse-strewn mud, <br />The sound of steel on armour <br />The feel of clotting blood. <br /> <br />The women I have ravished, <br />The infants I have slain, <br />The priests and nuns l've roasted, <br />They haunt me not again. <br /> <br />Priests talk of soul's salvation, <br />And shining lights afar, <br />But give me a harlot's laughter <br />And the battle flash of war. <br /> <br />Priests talk of soul's damnation <br />The white hot pits of hell; <br />I fear more wounds that fester <br />And gape and rot and smell <br /> <br />Then here's to blood and blasphemy! <br />And here's to whores and drink! <br />In life you know you're living <br />In death we only stink.<br /><br />General George S Patton Jnr<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mercenary-s-song-ad-1600/
