Fifes and Drums/His Job
HIS JOB
"I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier—
The nations ought to arbitrate, I say—
But I couldn't face my son if I made him leave undone
His bit to help America to-day.
Though I couldn't bear to think of him in battle,
And it's terrible to trust him to the sea,
I'll give him with a will where he doesn't have to kill
Is there nothing for my boy and me?"
There's a call for him that's louder every minute;
There's a hungry world that he can help to feed.
There's a fight without a gun that is waiting for your son
Where the enemy's the vermin and the weed.
If you didn't raise your boy to be a soldier,
If you didn't raise your boy to be a shirk,
Here's a job for head and hand—send him out to till the land;
What's the matter with a farmer's work?
Amelia Josephine Burr.