Subject of War in the Poems of Whitman, Crane, Longfellow, and Sandburg When reading poetry on the subject of war, one's own feelings regarding the subject are evoked. This makes it easier to feel the words and what they say to you. Crane's selection, "War is Kind" presents a dilemma from the outset as it uses two words "war" and "kind" that are dissimilar. Crane then highlights acts of destruction and despair with the "kindness" of war. He notes that a child should not weep when his father was killed, "Do not weep, babe, for war is kind. Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches