The Mad General (Anti-war Poem)

By well-wisher

Sat, 24 Aug 2013
  • 559 reads
3 comments
 

There once was a mad general

named Octavius McGee

who led ten thousand men, all

just as brave as men can be.

 

And he said to them “Keep marching

and we’ll march to victory!”

and, though tired, they kept marching,

though, to where, they could not see.

 

But then he led them to a cliff;

twas  a hundred foot drop

and those at the front wondered if

perhaps he would yell stop.

 

But he said to them keep marching

and though the front line tried to run

all the men behind kept marching,

marching, marching, marching on.

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Comments

Submitted by Linda Wigzell Cress on

Hi well-wisher. Very thought-provoking in its apparent simplicity.

 

Linda

Submitted by well-wisher on

Thanks, Linda. I used to like 'The Grand Old Duke of York' with his 'ten thousand men' when I was a child but it always seemed strange to me that they would only march up and down a hill and this is sort of a darker version of the Grand Old Duke of York with a cliff instead of a hill. War (unless it is waged for a genuinely noble cause such as saving peoples lives) just seems like an insane waste of human life; a mass human sacrifice for the sake of some trivial thing like the British economy and so I thought that writing a mad poem about it wouldn't be inappropriate.

Oh look, a link. I wonder where it leads.

JoHn

Submitted by Linda Wigzell Cress on

My school motto was 'Amor Vincit Omnia', a similar sentiment!

Linda