---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Scott of Amwell
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 2
number: 12
published: 1899-10
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Scott of Amwell, "War’s Drum, a Poem," *Improvement Era* 2, no. 12 (October 1899): 892.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera212unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera212unse
start_page: 892
end_page: 892
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1899-10)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera212unse
  publication_year: 1899
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1899, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# War’s Drum, a Poem

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WAR'S DRUM.

              I   hate that drum's discordant sound,
              Parading round, and round, and round,
              To thoughtless youth it pleasure yields,
              And lures from cities and from fields;
              To sell their liberty for charms
              Of tawdry lace and glittering arms;
              And, when Ambition's voice commands,
              To march, and fight, and fall, in foreign lands.

              I   hate that drum's discordant sound,
              Parading round, and round, and round,
              To me it talks of ravage's plains,
              And burning towns and ruined swains,
              And mangled limbs and dying groans,
              And all that misery's hand bestows,
              To fill the catalogue of human woes.
                                                    Scott of Amwell.