This poem was first released on the poems, prayers and promises album. it is the only album it has been released on.


Once upon a time in the land of hushabye
Around about the wondrous days of yore
I came across a sort of box
Bound up with chains and locked with locks
And labelled kindly do not touch, it's war

Decree was issued round about
All with a flourish and a shout
And a gaily coloured 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 play about with war

Well, the children understood
Children happen to be good
They were just as good around the time of yaw
They didn't try to pick the locks, or break into that deadly box
They never tried to play about with war

Mummies didn't either
Sisters, aunts, grannies neither
Cause they were quiet and sweet and pretty in those wondrous days of yaw
Well, very much the same as now, 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 guns and flags 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 and stored
And what was sad and most unfair is that it didn't seem to care who much 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 more and more, and leaves them dead and burned and dying
Thousands of them sick and crying
Cause when it bumps, it's really very sore

Now there's a way to stop the ball
It isn't difficult at all
All it takes is wisdom, i'm absolutely sure that we could get it back into the box
And buy the chains and lock the locks
No one seems to want to save the children any more

Well, that's the way it all appears
Cause it's been bouncing round for years and years
In spite of all the wisdom wiz since those wondrous days of yaw
And the time they came across the box
Bound up with chains and locked with locks
And labelled kindly do not touch, it's war

Words by lascelles