"Laugh while you can" sang the fledglings in the market to the razor-fingered varmint ever stalking 'neath their nest.
"Laugh while you can," quoth the poet to the sorrows ever-looming over morrows, ever bleeding through the past.
"Laugh while you can," chant the children in the clearing over battle-monger's cheering always dreaming they will last.
For when numbered days are done and every bootstrap smeared with blood has all been washed up in a flood and every banner turned to ash,
When the hearts have all been won and when the yarns have all been spun and when the very blinding sun has blinked away a-fleeing fast,
When I am cuddled in my nest above the Altar where I rest with all the friends I love the best reborn and radiating light
All your schemes and all your plans, all the ways you've mangled man, every word of your commands will be forgotten to the night.
So if you steal my anxious sleep,
salivate each time I weep,
waft me with the truths and lies that you concoct like sour mead,
If you rejoice at fallen kin, wounded conscience, starving kids, savor every bleeding moment as another one begins. For your time is short and passing--I can see the shame you're casting, and it surely soon will swallow you without my help or thought.
So I'll speak to you no more, for I have better thoughts in store. Should you go or should you listen, should you raid my bank or kitchen, I'll remember every promise that all wars on earth will cease.
I'll remember every promise that my own dear Lord will keep.