Why all these bugles cry   These squads of young men drill   To kill and to be killed   Stood waiting by the train      Why the orders loud and hoarse   Why the engine's groaning cough   As it strains to drag us all   Into the holocaust      Why crowds who sing and cry   And shout and fling us flowers   And trade their rights for ours   To murder and to die      CHORUS   The dove has torn her wing(s?)   So no more songs of love   We are not here to sing   We're here to kill the dove      Why must this moment come   When childhood has to die   When hope shrinks to a sigh   And speech into a drum      Why are they pale and still   Young boys trained over night   Concripts payed to kill    And dressed in gray to fight      These rainclouds massing tight   This train load battle bound   This moving burial ground   Goes thundering to the night      CHORUS      Why statues towering grave   Above the last defeat   Old words and lies repeat   Across a new made grave      And why the same still birds   That victory always brought   These hours of glory bought   By men with mounds of earth      Dead ash without a spark   Where cities used to be    Where guns probe every spark   And crush it into dust      CHORUS      And while your face undone   With jagged lines of tears   That gave in those first years   All the peace I'd ever want      Your body in the gloom   The platform fading back    Your shadow on the track   A flower upon a tomb      And why these days ahead   When I must let you cry    And live prepared to die   And to....      Chorus