For Remembrance Day ~ The Box

For Remembrance Day The Box (Words by Lascelles, recited by John Denver on the album Poems, Prayers & Promises)

Once upon a time in the land of hushaby

Around about the wondrous days of yore

They came across this sort of box, bound up with chains and locked with locks

And labeled "Kindly do not touch, its war."

Decree was issued round about, all with a flourish and a shout

And a gaily coloured mascot tripping lightly on before

"Don't fiddle with this deadly box or break the chains or pick the locks

And please, don't ever play about with war!"

Well, the children understood, children happen to be good

And they were just as good around the time of yore

They didn't try to pick the locks, or break into that deadly box

They never tried to play about with war

Mommies didn't either, sisters, aunts, and grannies neither

For they were quiet, sweet and pretty in those wondrous days of yore

They're very much the same as now, not the ones to blame somehow

For opening up that deadly box of war

But someone did, someone battered in the lid

And spilled the insides out across the floor

A sort of bouncy, bumpy ball made up of guns and flags and all the tears and horror and the death that goes with war.

It bounced right out, and went bashing all about

And bumping into everything in store

And what was sad and most unfair is that it didn't seem to care

Much who it bumped or why, or what, or for

It bumped the children mainly and I'll tell you this quite plainly

It bumps them every day, and more and more.

And leaves them dead and burned and dying, thousands of them sick and crying

For when it bumps, its really very sore

Now there's a way to stop the ball, it isn't difficult at all -

All it takes is wisdom, I'm absolutely sure that we could get it in the box,

And bind the chains and lock the locks

No one seems to want to save the children any more

No? Well, that's the way it all appears

'Cause it's been bouncing round for years and years

In spite of all the wisdom wizzed since those wondrous days of yore

Since the time they came across the box

Bound up with chains and locked with locks

And labeled "Kindly do not touch, its war.