Furthermore and Moreover

Did ever it occur to you
    When pondering on this and that
Which statesmen do or do not do,
    On crises, situations new,
The writhings of the diplomat,
The rising of new hope that shone
    Briefly to fade before fresh fears,
Agreements broken, treaties gone —
This sort of thing’s been going on
    For years and years and years and years?

Moreover, have you ever thought
    When you are dead and I am dead
With all we ever planned or wrought,
    When all this generation sought,
Dreams and ideals, long have fled,
That our sons’ sons and their sons’ sons
    Will still be poised on ruin’s brink,
And with diplomacy or guns
Seek peace as long as history runs?
    And does it please you so to think?

Yet, furthermore, can you conceive
    A state of things where all this ends?
Can you imagine, or believe
    In such a world where none may grieve
And all earth’s nations meet as friends,
Where never in the daily news
    Spring sudden tales of dread to touch
The heart and mind, or to confuse
The tangle with more tangled views?
    Would such a world content you much?

Moreover, if it came today
    Out of a clear sky, heaven-sent,
If conflict all were swept away,
    Would you be quickly glad and gay
Or lost in queer bewilderment?
Would you not rather miss the shocks
    And tremors that today we know
In this man’s world of swift, hard knocks
And that strange modern paradox —
    The ever-changing status quo?

You might grow bored with being good;
    And, furthermore, I think you would.