Stanza One 

Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind. 

Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky 

And the affrighted steed ran on alone, 

Do not weep. 

War is kind. 

In the first stanza of ‘War is Kind’ the speaker begins by making use of the refrain.
He tells a “maiden,” or unmarried woman, that she should not weep. “War,” he
states, is “kind”. This is obviously a very unusual and likely ironic, thing to say.

He goes on to tell the woman that her “lover threw” his hands in the air when he
was confronted with war. When this happened, his “steed,” or horse ran alone. It
was “affrighted,” a complicated way to say frightened. It is unclear what exactly
happened to make the lover throw his hands in the air. Maybe it was in
surrender, or perhaps something darker happened and he was injured or even
killed. 

The last two lines of this stanza are a reiteration of part of the first line, and the
two statements which make up the refrain. These two lines bookend the stanza,
as they do with stanzas three and five. 

Stanza Two 

Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment, 

Little souls who thirst for fight, 

These men were born to drill and die. 

The unexplained glory flies above them, 

Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom— 

A field where a thousand corpses lie. 
In the second stanza of ‘War is Kind’ the speaker plays with the previous
reference to a “steed” and uses the word “Hoarse”. This time though he is
referring to the drums played by the regiment of soldiers. They sound “hoarse,”
as if they are sick or in need of something to drink. In the next two lines, the
speaker says the soldiers are “Little souls” and are thirsting not for water, but “for
fight”. 

The phrase little souls is interesting, it contrasts with the next lines which seem to
suggest the men do not have souls. The speaker goes on to say that these men
were born for nothing else other than to fight. They were born to “drill” as in train
and practice and then die. They are mechanical in their actions and in their
purpose. 

In the fourth line the speaker references “unexplained glory”. There is no clear
definitive answer to what this glory is, but it could refer to the ephemeral nature
of glory itself. It is something that spectators and outsiders from war imbue upon
those who were in war. Glory is not something that actively seeks out soldiers on
the battlefield.

In the last lines of the section, the speaker mentions a battle god. There are a
number of different gods who could fit this description, but the exact name does
not matter. What the speaker is doing here is setting out a scene, which is ruled
differently than other kingdoms. This particular kingdom is nothing more than a
field where “a thousand corpses lie”. It’s a dark and terrible place, which is ruled
over by a powerful force.

Stanza Three 

Do not weep, babe, for war is kind. 

Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches, 

Raged at his breast, gulped and died, 

Do not weep. 

War is kind. 
In the third stanza, the speaker begins by asking a “babe” not to weep. He has
moved on from addressing a woman to speaking to a young child. 

He tells the child that there is no reason to weep, and then provides them with a
very good reason to do so. The child’s father, who was in a battle of some kind
died in “the yellow trenches”. He had raged in his breast and in the simplest way,
“gulped and died”. The “rage” refers to his own thirst for war, and to the injury
which killed him. The bullet entered his body, driven by another’s rage. 

The refrain is again repeated. It is starting to become even more haunting as its
deep irony is made clear.

Stanza Four 

      Swift, blazing flag of the regiment, 

Eagle with crest of red and gold, 

These men were born to drill and die. 

Point for them the virtue of slaughter, 

Make plain to them the excellence of killing 

And a field where a thousand corpses lie. 

The flag of the regiment is mentioned in the fourth stanza of ‘War is Kind’. It is
“blazing” and pattered with a “crest of red and gold” and an eagle. There is
another moment of repetition in which the line “These men were born to drill and
die” is used again. It is a reminder, and its reuse helps create a rhythm to the
poem. Along with the refrain “Do not weep. / War is kind” the poem starts to
sound song-like.

In lines four through six of this stanza the speaker goes through some terrible
images. He speaks to the flag and tells it to make sure the men know that there is
“virtue” in slaughtering one’s enemies and that there is “excellence” in killing. The
stanza ends with the repetition of the line “And a field where a thousand corpses
lie.”

Stanza Five 

Mother whose heart hung humble as a button 

On the bright splendid shroud of your son, 

Do not weep. 

War is kind.
The fifth stanza of ‘War is Kind’  is directed toward a mother who was faced with
the loss of her son. With the alliterative phrase “heart hung humble” the speaker
describes the way she stood before his coffin. Her heart was on the “shroud” of
her son, as simple as a button. Crane describes the heart as completing the action,
a technique known as metonymy. The excerpt ends with the speaker again telling
someone not to cry, and that war is kind.