{
 "id": "james-weldon-johnson/and-the-greatest-of-these-is-war",
 "title": "And the Greatest of These Is War",
 "poet": "James Weldon Johnson",
 "poet_slug": "james-weldon-johnson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Fifty Years & Other Poems",
 "book_slug": "fifty-years-and-other-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1917,
  "venue": "Fifty Years & Other Poems (1917)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/fiftyyearsother00johnrich",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17884"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/james-weldon-johnson_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.google.com/books/edition/How_the_National_Association_for_the_Adv/AAs-AQAAMAAJ",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17884",
   "https://archive.org/details/fiftyyearsother00johnrich",
   "https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/johnson/johnson.html",
   "https://archive.org/details/godstrombonessev00johnso"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 47,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 70,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Around the council-board of Hell, with Satan at their head,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Three Great Scourges of humanity sat.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gaunt Famine, with hollow cheek and voice, arose and spoke⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“O, Prince, I have stalked the earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And my victims by ten thousands I have slain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have smitten old and young.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mouths of the helpless old moaning for bread, I have filled with dust;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I have laughed to see a crying babe tug at the shriveling breast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of its mother, dead and cold.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have heard the cries and prayers of men go up to a tearless sky,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And fall back upon an earth of ashes;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But, heedless, I have gone on with my work.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis thus, O, Prince, that I have scourged mankind.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And Satan nodded his head.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Pale Pestilence, with stenchful breath, then spoke and said⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Great Prince, my brother, Famine, attacks the poor.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He is most terrible against the helpless and the old.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I have made a charnel-house of the mightiest cities of men.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When I strike, neither their stores of gold or of grain avail.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a breath I lay low their strongest, and wither up their fairest.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I come upon them without warning, lancing invisible death.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From me they flee with eyes and mouths distended;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I poison the air for which they gasp, and I strike them down fleeing.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis thus, great Prince, that I have scourged mankind.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And Satan nodded his head.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then the red monster, War, rose up and spoke⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His blood-shot eyes glared ’round him, and his thundering voice",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Echoed through the murky vaults of Hell.⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“O, mighty Prince, my brothers, Famine and Pestilence,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have slain their thousands and ten thousands⁠—true;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the greater their victories have been,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The more have they wakened in Man’s breast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The God-like attributes of sympathy, of brotherhood and love",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And made of him a searcher after wisdom.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I arouse in Man the demon and the brute,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I plant black hatred in his heart and red revenge.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the summit of fifty thousand years of upward climb",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I haul him down to the level of the start, back to the wolf.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I give him claws.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I set his teeth into his brother’s throat.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I make him drunk with his brother’s blood.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I laugh ho! ho! while he destroys himself.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O, mighty Prince, not only do I slay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I draw Man hellward.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And Satan smiled, stretched out his hand, and said⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“O War, of all the scourges of humanity, I crown you chief.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And Hell rang with the acclamation of the Fiends.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}