How Many Little Children Sleep
by James Agee

How many little children sleep
To wake, like you, only to weep?
How many others play who will
Like you, and all men, weep and kill?

And many parents watch and say,
Where they weep, where they play,
“By all we love, by all we know,
It never shall befall them so.”

But in each one the terror grows
By all he loves, by all he knows,
“Soon they must weep; soon they shall kill.
No one wills it, but all will.”

But in each one the terror moves
By all he knows, by all he loves,
“Soon they will weep, soon they will kill.
No one wills it, but all will.”