The Box
Friday, Oct 17, 2008 1:17PM / Standard Entry
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A story by Kendrew Lascelles
published 1974
The Box
Once upon a time in the land of hush-a-bye,
Around about the wondrous days of yore,
They came across a sort of box
Bound up with chains and locked with locks
And labeled, "Kindly do not touch, it's war."
A decree was issued 'round about -
All with a flourish and a shout
And a gaily colored 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 mess about with war."
Well the children understood,
Children happen to be good
And were just as good around the time of yore,
They didn't try to pick the locks
Or break into the deadly box
And never tried to play about with war.
Mommies didn't either -
Sisters, Aunts, nor Grannies neither
'Cause they were quiet, and sweet and pretty
In those wondrous days of yore,
Well, very much the same as now
And 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 flags and guns 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
Was that it didn't really seem to care
Much whom 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 what is more
It leaves them dead and burned and dying,
Thousands of them sick and crying,
'Cause when it bumps it's very very sore.
There is a away to stop the ball,
It isn't very hard at all,
All it takes is wisdom and
I'm absolutely sure
We could get it back into the box
And bind the chains and lock the locks
But no one seems to want to save the children anymore.
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,
And the time they came across that box
Bound up with chains and locked with locks
And labeled, "Kindly do not touch, it's war."
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