Digital Tradition Mirror

I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier

Ten million soldiers to the war have gone
Who may never return again,
Ten million mothers' hearts must break
For the ones who died in vain.
Head bowed down in sorrow
In her lonely years
I hears a mother murmer thro' her tears.

cho: I didn't raise my  boy to be soldier
     I brought him up to be my pride and joy
     Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder
     To shoot some other mother's darling boy?
     Let nations arbitrate their future troubles
     It's time to lay the sword and gun away,
     There'd be no war today
     If mothers all would say:
     "I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier."

What victory can cheer a mother's heart
When she looks at her blighted home?
What victory can bring her back
All she cared to call her own?
Let each mother answer
In the years to be
Remember that my boy belongs to me!

RG
OCT98

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!