“O beautiful for heroes proved
in liberating strife,
who more than self their country loved,
and mercy more than life!”
Katharine Lee Bates (1893)
“O beautiful for heroes proved
in liberating strife,
who more than self their country loved,
and mercy more than life!”
Katharine Lee Bates (1893)
The greatest mercy we can give
is that to those sore victimized
by not suffering to live
the foe for whom beloved died.
Thou shalt not kill’s an obligation
but sometimes it all ain’t so clear
when you can stop sheer devastation
by slaughtering the mutineer.
The calculus of spilling blood
is not found in a holy book;
it’s what you do, not what you should,
and what the end to murder took.
I hope perhaps I’ll be forgiven
of that which, for mercy, I”ve been driven.
“Thou shalt not kill” all ain’t so clear–agreed, Andrew. Sometimes justice calls for harsh action.