Antiwar literary and philosophical selections

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

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Isaac Watts
Hymn 130
Love and hatred. Phil. 2:2; Eph. 4:30, etc.

Now by the bowels of my God,
His sharp distress, his sore complaints,
By his last groans, his dying blood,
I charge my soul to love the saints.

Clamor, and wrath, and war, begone,
Envy and spite, for ever cease;
Let bitter words no more be known
Amongst the saints, the sons of peace.

The Spirit, like a peaceful dove,
Flies from the realms of noise and strife:
Why should we vex and grieve his love
Who seals our souls to heav’nly life?

Tender and kind be all our thoughts,
Through all our lives let mercy run;
So God forgives our num’rous faults,
For the dear sake of Christ his Son.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

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Rev. John Whitehouse
Ode To War

I.

Dread Offspring of Tartarian birth,
Whose nodding crest is stain’d with gore,
Whom to some giant-son of Earth,
Strife in strong pangs of childbed bore;
0 War! fierce monster, homicide,
Who marchest on with hideous stride,
Shaking thy spear distilling blood;
Bellona thee, in angry mood,
Taught proud Ambition’s spoils to win,
Amidst the loud, conflicting din
Of arms, where Discord’s gorgon-featured form
High shakes her flaming torch amidst the martial storm.

II.

Stern God! wolf-hearted, and accursed,
Foster’d by Power, by Rapine nursed,
Oppression ever in thy train,
For hapless man prepares her chain:
A thousand vulture-forms beside
Stalk on before thee; bloated Pride,
Thick-eyed Revenge, his soul on fire,
And Slaughter breathing threatenings dire,
Tumult, and Rage, and Fury fell,
And Cruelty, the imp of hell,
Her heart of adamant! and arm’d her hand
With iron hooks, and cords, and Desolation’s brand.

III.

There, where the Battle loudest roars,
Where wide the impurpled deluge pours,
And ghastly Death, his thousands slain,
Whirls his swift chariot o’er the plain,
Rapt in wild Horror’s frantic fit,
‘Midst the dire scene thou lov’st to sit,
To catch some wretch’s parting sigh,
To mark the dimly-glazing eye,
The face into contortions thrown,
Convuls’d: the deep, deep-lengthening groan,
The frequent sob, the agonizing smart,
And nature’s dread release, the pang that rends the heart.

IV.

Avaunt, from Albion’s isle! not there
Thy arms, and maddening car prepare,
Nor bid thy crimson banners fly
Terrific, through the troubled sky;
But stay thee in thy wild career;
Lay by thy glittering shield and spear,
Thy polished casque, and nodding crest,
And let thy sable steeds have rest:
At length, the work of slaughter close,
And give to Europe’s sons repose,
Bid the hoarse clangors of the trumpet cease,
And smooth thy wrinkled front to meet the smiles of Peace.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

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Thomas Chatterton

From The Bacchanalian

What is war and all its joys?
Useless mischief, empty noise.
What are arms and trophies won?
Spangles glittering in the sun.

****

From The Prophesy

When Civil Power shall snore at ease,
While soldiers fire – to keep the peace;
When murders sanctuary find,
And petticoats can Justice blind;
Look up ye Britons, cease to sigh,
For your redemption draweth nigh.

…

When soldiers, paid for our defence,
In wanton pride slay innocence;
Blood from the ground for vengeance reeks,
Till Heaven the inquisition makes;
Look up ye Britons, cease to sigh,
For your redemption draweth nigh.

****

From Elegy On The Death Of Mr. Phillips

Peace, deck’d in all the softness of the dove,
Over thy passions spread her silver plume;
The rosy veil of harmony and love
Hung on thy soul in eternal bloom.

Peace, gentlest, softest of the virtues, spread
Her silver pinions, wet with dewy tears,
Upon her best distinguished poet’s head,
And taught his lyre the music of the spheres.

Temp’rance, with health and beauty in her train,
And massy-muscled strength in graceful pride,
Pointed at scarlet luxury and pain,
And did at every frugal feast preside.

Black melancholy stealing to the shade
With raging madness, frantic, loud, and dire,
Whose bloody hand displays the reeking blade,
Were strangers to thy heaven-directed lyre.

Content, who smiles in every frown of fate,
Wreath’d thy pacific brow and sooth’d thy ill:
In thy own virtues and thy genius great,
The happy muse laid every trouble still.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

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Rev. Sydney Smith

If three men were to have their legs and arms broken, and were to remain all night exposed to the inclemency of weather, the whole country would be in a state of the most dreadful agitation. Look at the wholesale death of a field of battle, ten acres covered with dead, and half dead, and dying; and the shrieks and agonies of many thousands human beings. There is more of misery inflicted upon mankind by one year of war, than by all the civil peculations and oppressions of a century. Yet it is a state into which the mass of mankind rush with the greatest of avidity, hailing official murderers, in scarlet, gold and cocks’ feathers, as the greatest and most glorious of human creatures. It is the business of every wise and good man to set himself against this passion for military glory, which really seems to be the most fruitful source of human misery.

What would be said of a party of gentlemen who were to sit very peaceably conversing for half an hour, then were to fight for another half hour, then shake hands, and at the expiration of thirty minutes fight again? Yet such has been the state of the world between 1714 and 1815, a period in which there was in England as many years of war as peace. Societies have been instituted for the preservation of peace, and for lessening the popular love of war. They deserve every encouragement…

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

Lewis Morris: Selections on war and peace

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Lewis Morris

From Ode Sung at the First Co-operative Festival (1888)

Come let us sing together a new song,
The triumph of the weak made strong;
The victories of peace we celebrate,
Not those of war and hate.
The victories of peace, won after many days:
Let us our voices tune to joy and praise;
Come let us sing a new and happy song!

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From To John Bright

Friend of the friendless else, and art thou dead?
Great Master of our vigorous Saxon speech,
Unwearied pleader for the people’s
Hater of war, strong to convince and teach,
With passionate faith and indignation strong,
Mighty to slay the hydra-heads of wrong.

Thy voice was aye for Freedom, and thy heart
Warlike for Peace…

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From Song of Empire

And shall, if Heaven so will, still more increase
With thy remaining years, till blessed Peace,
Half frighted from us now by grave alarms
Of half a world in arms,
Shall brood, a white-winged Angel, o’er the Earth.
Then may the rule of Wrong be done!
Then may a new and Glorious Sun
Gild the illumined World! and then
Come Righteousness to men!

***

From The Imperial Institute

No more we seek our Realm’s increase
By War’s red rapine, but by white-winged Peace…

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

Thomas Hardy: All-Earth-gladdening Law of Peace, war’s apology wholly stultified

Thomas Hardy: Channel Firing

Thomas Hardy: The Man He Killed

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Thomas Hardy
Horses Aboard

Horses in horsecloths stand in a row
On board the huge ship that at last lets go:
Whither are they sailing? They do not know,
Nor what for, nor how. –
They are horses of war,
And are going to where there is fighting afar;
But they gaze through their eye-holes unwitting they are,
And that in some wilderness, gaunt and ghast,
Their bones will bleach ere a year has passed,
And the item be as ‘war-waste’ classed. –
And when the band booms, and the folk say ‘Good-bye!’
And the shore slides astern, they appear wrenched awry
From the scheme Nature planned for them, – wondering why.

***

A Parting Scene

The two pale women cried,
But the man seemed to suffer more,
Which he strove hard to hide.
They stayed in the waiting-room, behind the door,
Till startled by the entering engine-roar,
As if they could not bear to have unfurled
Their misery to the eyes of all the world.

A soldier and his young wife
Were the couple; his mother the third,
Who had seen the seams of life.
He was sailing for the East I later heard.
– They kissed long, but they did not speak a word;
Then, strained, he went. To the elder the wife in tears
“Too long; too long!” burst out. (‘Twas for five years.)

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

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Amelia Opie
Lines Written at Norwich
On The First News of Peace (1802)

What means that wild and joyful cry?
Why do yon crowds in mean attire
Throw thus their ragged arms on high?
In want what can such joy inspire?

And why on every face I meet
Now beams a smile, now drops a tear?
Like longloved friends, lo! strangers greet,…
Each to his fellow man seems dear.

In one warm glow of Christian love
Forgot all proud distinctions seem;
The rich, the poor, together rove;
Their eyes with answering kindness beam…

Blest sound! blest sight!…But pray ye pause
And bid my eager wonder cease;
Of joy like this, say, what’s the cause?…
A thousand voices answer…’PEACE!’

O sound most welcome to my heart!
Tidings for which I’ve sighed for years!
But ill would words my joy impart;
Let me my rapture speak in tears.

Ye patient poor, from wonder free
Your signs of joy I now survey,
And hope your sallow cheeks to see
Once more the bloom of health display.

Of those poor babes that on your knees
Imploring food have vainly hung,
You’ll soon each craving want appease,…
For Plenty comes with Peace along.

And you, fond parents, faithful wives,
Who’ve long for sons and husbands feared,
Peace now shall save their precious lives;
They come by danger more endeared.

But why, to all these transports dead,
Steals yon shrunk form from forth the throng?
Has she not heard the tidings spread?
Tell her these shouts to Peace belong…

‘Talk not of Peace,…the sound I hate,’
The mourner with a sigh replied;
‘Alas! Peace comes for me too late,…
For my brave boy in Egypt died!’

Poor mourner! at thy tale of grief
The crowd was mute and sad awhile;
But e’en compassion’s tears are brief
When general transport claims a smile.

Full soon they checked the tender sigh
Their glowing hearts to pity gave;
But, while the mourner yet was nigh,
They warmly blessed the slaughtered brave:…

And from all hearts, as sad she passed,
This virtuous prayer her sorrow draws:…
‘Grant, Heaven, those tears may be the last
That war, detested war, shall cause!…

Oh! if with pure ambition fraught
All nations join this virtuous prayer,
If they, by late experience taught,
No longer wish to slay, but spare,…

Then hostile bands on War’s red plain
For conquest have not vainly burned,
Nor then through long long years in vain
Have thousands died and millions mourned.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

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William Crowe
In evil hour, and with unhallow’d voice (1796)

In evil hour, and with unhallow’d voice
Profaning the pure gift of poesy
Did he begin to sing, he first who sung
Of arms and combats, and the proud array
Of warriors on the embattled plain and raised
The aspiring spirit to hopes of fair renown
By deeds of violence. For since that time
The imperious victor, oft unsatisfied
With bloody spoil and tyrannous conquest, dares
To challenge fame and honour; and too oft
The poet, bending low to lawless power,
Hath paid unseemly reverence, yea, and brought
Streams clearest of the Aonian fount, to wash
Blood-stain’d ambition. If the stroke of war
Fell certain on the guilty head none else;
If they who make the cause might taste the effect,
And drink themselves the bitter cut they mix,
Then might the bard (though child of peace) delight
To twine fresh wreaths around the conqueror’s brow,
Or haply strike his high toned harp to swell
The trumpet’s martial sound, and bid them on,
Whom justice arms for vengeance: but alas!
That undistinguishing and deathful storm
Beats heaviest on the exposed Innocent;
And they that stir its fury, while it raves
Stand at safe distance; send their mandate forth
Unto the mortal Ministers that wait
To do their bidding – Ah! who then regards
The Widow’s tears, the friendless Orphan’s cry,
And Famine, and the ghastly train of woes
That follow at the dogged heels of war?
They in the pomp and pride of victory,
Rejoicing o’er the desolated Earth,
As at an altar wet with human blood,
And flaming with the fire of cities burnt,
Sing their mad hymns of triumph, hymns to God
O’er the destruction of his gracious works! –
Hymns to the Father o’er his slaughter’d Sons!
Detested by their sword, abhorred their name,
And scorn’d the tongues that praise them.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

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Mary Russell Mitford
The Pen and the Sword

Inscribed to the Right Hon. R. B. Sheridan

And dar’st thou then with me compare,
Frail fleeting passenger of air!
Say, am not I my country’s rock,
The lion in the battle’s shock?
I pour impetuous from afar
The mighty torrent of the war,
Like Kissoun’s waters, Phison’s flood,
Spreads far the whelming tide of blood!
Forsaken parents well can tell
How fierce the raging currents swell;
Deserted lands the tide-mark form,
And nations perish in the storm.
Bright is the forked lightning’s stream;
As bright, as fatal too, my beam!
From me the bravest warrior flies,
Or pausing bleeds, and sinks, and dies.
And as the dews of Heav’n that fall
On vines that clothe the cottage wall,
Send life through ev’ry drooping cell,
The tendrils curl, the clusters swell;
To baths of blood my pow’rs restore,
My nourishment the hero’s gore!
From me the lion’s princely whelp
Expects and finds its only help;
Her prey from me the vulture seeks,
And pays me with her dismal shrieks;
And with the wild wolf’s deepen’d howl,
Makes music for my restless soul.
Fear not! while I exist ye ne’er
Shall pangs of thirst and hunger share;
Still be the warrior’s flesh your food,
Still be your drink the hero’s blood!
And dar’st thou, frail and brittle reed!
Match thy weak word with my proud deed?
Can’st thou resist the eddying storm;
Will not the flames consume thy form?
And I, whom thou hast dar’d to brave,
My very touch would be thy grave.
Yes, such thou art, the pen replied –
Yes, such is war’s ensanguin’d tide!
Thine be the fame to latest times,
To shine supreme in blood and crimes.
Oh! innocents untimely slain;
Oh! matrons kill’d in child-birth pain!
Babes from their mother’s bosom borne!
Sons from their dying father’s torn!
Nations of orphans and of slaves!
Unpeopl’d earth and peopl’d graves!
‘Tis yours to tell what endless fame
This all-consuming sword may clams.
My pure, unblemished rights to share!
Learn thy contracted sphere to scan;
If strength were pow’r, then what were man?
The elephant had rul’d the world,
And monarchs from their thrones had hurl’d.
‘Tis mind, ’tis reason’s sovereign sway,
That nations own and states obey.
And what art thou? and what am I?
The globe shall hear the proud reply.
Me, science, wisdom, virtue claim,
And gain a never ending fame.
Through me the eloquence that dies
Fast as the fleeting shadow flies,
To ages yet unborn, shall shew
The Priest’s pure zeal, the Patriot’s glow.
Through me, the high behest, ye share,
That bids frail man his fellow spare;
And still the heav’nly thunders roll
“Commit no murder” on the soul!
Thou dwell’st among the mountain rocks,
Haunt of the chamois, and the fox;
Thou sleep’st upon the rugged bed,
Where foaming torrents erst have spread;
Thou roam’st along the blasted heath,
Or shades of plunder and of death,
Where murd’rers ply their dreadful trade,
And bathe in blood thy reeking blade.
Such is thy fate! and dar’st thou then
Compare therewith the blameless pen?
Scourge of the weak, but wisdom’s slave,
Dar’st thou to threat an early grave?
My waving banners once unfurl’d,
Have launch’d thee o’er a conquer’d world;
My breath can bid the havoc cease,
And sheath thy gory blade in peace.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

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William Cunningham
On the Peace (1801)

Long banish’d Peace again descends,
Array’d in all her heav’nly charms;
Her dove-like wings to earth she bends,
Bids Europe drop the deathful arms.

Aghast she stands at her return,
To view War, Death, and Horror reign;
Hears widows, mothers, orphans mourn,
For husbands, sons, and fathers slain.

Scarce had the Heav’nly Goddess spoke,
When France and Britain heard her voice;
The hostile bands of war were broke –
Let all the world around rejoice!

Armies commission’d to destroy,
Shall ravage Europe’s plains no more;
No longer they their arms employ
To drench her fertile fields with gore.

The Rhine shall cease with blood to flow,
Th’ affrighted Po shall limpid stray;
Where late encamp’d the warlike foe.
Blithe shepherds and their flocks will play.

Victorious Nelson! war give o’er,
With laurel wreaths and olive crown’d;
Now moor thy fleet round Albion’s shore,
That long hath aw’d the great Profound.

Commerce displays her canvas wings,
To foreign climes bounds o’er the flood;
Their choicest stores from thence she brings;
Her constant aim’s the public good.

Life-aiding Agriculture spreads
Beneath th’ industrious peasant’s care;
The hostile bands no more he dreads,
To mar the labour of the year.

E’en Science self will wake anew,
In ev’ry grace divinely drest;
And ope new prospects to our view,
While love and friendship warms each breast.

The tender mother fondly hears
The darling son from danger freed;
Whose breast for his oft heav’d with fears,
Lest War should him to battle lead.

The lovely nymph of blooming chains
May fearless yield her heart and all,
Since War no more will from her arms
Her favourite swain to battle call.

These, and a thousand gifts are thine,
Sweet Peace! – which War can never know:
Now Europe bows before thy shrine,
From thee her choicest blessings flow.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

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Ann Yearsley
Anarchy: A Sonnet

FURIES! Why sleep amid the carnage? – Rise!
Bring up my wolves of war, my pointed spears.
Daggers yet reeking, banners fill’d with sighs,
And paint your cheeks with gore, and lave your locks in tears.
On yon white bosom see that happy child!
Seize it, deface its infant charms! and say,
Anarchy view’d its mangled limbs, and smil’d!
Strike the young mother to the earth! – Away!
This is my era! O’er the dead I go!
From my hot nostrils minute murders fall!
Behind my burning ear lurks feeble woe!
Fill’d with my dragon’s ire, my slaves for kingdoms call!
Hear them not, father of the ensanguin’d race! –
World! give my monsters way! – Death! Keep thy steady chase!

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

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Peter L. Courtier
Ode to Peace (1796)

Spirit of Harmony, descend;
Thro’ universal Man
Diffuse thy godlike plan!
Shall mortal still by fellow mortal bleed,
And unavailing Pity mourn the deed?
Let the revolving years more swiftly flee,
And bring the promis’d time
When Animosity shall end;
Joy sound to ev’ry clime
The sweet return of Peace – Creation’s Jubilee!

Forgive the Muse: Peace is her darling theme –
The groans of Widows, and the Virgin’s scream,
The sack of cities, and the daring fight,
Afford her no delight!
Willing from Devastation’s reign she turns,
With trembling nerves and bitterness of soul,
To scenes for which with ecstasy she burns!
When Happiness shall reach the farthest pole;
When Amity each barrier will remove,
And hostile nations join the bands of love.

Philanthropy! thy influence can chase
Each dreadful purpose of revenge,
Charm the dark mind of Discord to embrace,
And with Benevolence avenge.
He whom thy powers invigorate
Feels not the galling force of hate;
Anger ne’er clouds his gen’rous face:
He knows the frailties of this mortal frame,
If others err – that he has done the same;
And feels compassion for the human race.

Bring the transcendent age,
Reveal’d in Prophecy’s unerring page,
When war and tyranny shall ne’er disgrace
Th’ unsullied earth, nor Discord find a place
Throughout Creation’s unrecorded space:
But Concord’s amaranthine chain
Unite the Continent, embrace the Main:
From Albion’s shores, to the last southern isle,
Prosperity extend, and Nature smile!

Millions in joyful expectation wait
To see the heart of enmity dilate;
To see wide Liberality divest
Contracted notions from the human breast;
Candour the bonds of sectaries unbind,
And heav’n-born Charity exalt the mind!
Welcome, celestial morn!
Whose beams no intervening mists will shroud;
On thee the sun of truth shall dawn,
Attain meridian strength, and shine without a cloud.

Bright Day-star of the skies,
Eternal Truth, arise!
The lingering shades of Prejudice dispel;
Let thy resistless charm
His votaries disarm,
And ‘keen Enquiry’ break the hoary spell;
Then shall sweet harmony resound
Through Nature’s universal round,
Nor fiend-like deeds deform the vernal year!
Justice and Reason shall preside,
And Philanthropy’s blissful tide,
In one vast sea, encircle every sphere!

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

Lewis Morris: Selections on war and peace

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Morris Lewis
From The Ode of Evil

The evil blight of war
Torments the race from age to age,
And savage lust and brutal rage
Deform this glorious heritage of earth.
We shudder and grow faint,
Knowing the dim fair dreams of seer and saint
Show thin and little worth.

***

From Suffrages

But wherefore is it that such things are;
That want and famine, and blood and war
Are everywhere, and do prevail?
And wherefore is it the same monotonous tale
Is ever told by the lips of men?

…

And the hospital wards are choked; and the fire and the flood
Vex men still, and the leaguered cities are red with blood.

***

From Confession

What if a myriad ages still
Of wrong and pain, of waste and blood,
Confuse our thought, triumphant Good
At length, at last, our souls can fill…

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

French writers on war and peace

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Albert-Paul Granier
The Mortars
Translated by Ian Higgins

Juddering iron buckets clanging,
jerking deadweight chains clanking,
the thunder lumbering caravan
labours on, along the baking roads and tracks,
all thunderous crash and clash.

The straining, weary horses
ponderingly nod,
as though to doubt
their onward slog will ever end . . .

Wheels as thick as millstones
mill the crunching road.

And in towns and villages along the way
thunderstruck groups watch
the deadweight cortege of death grind past,
the squat carriages, bolt-stubbled muscles bulging,
and, mute, menacing, brutal,
the black barrels, muzzled and bound like lunatics.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

American writers on peace and against war

Women writers on peace and war

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Edna St. Vincent Millay
Conscientious Objector

I shall die, but
that is all that I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall;
I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.
He is in haste; he has business in Cuba,
business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning.
But I will not hold the bridle
while he clinches the girth.
And he may mount by himself:
I will not give him a leg up.

Though he flick my shoulders with his whip,
I will not tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where
the black boy hides in the swamp.
I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death;
I am not on his pay-roll.

I will not tell him the whereabout of my friends
nor of my enemies either.
Though he promise me much,
I will not map him the route to any man’s door.
Am I a spy in the land of the living,
that I should deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of our city
are safe with me; never through me shall you be overcome.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

American writers on peace and against war

Ella Wheeler Wilcox: A Plea To Peace

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Ellen Wheeler Wilcox
The Paean of Peace

With ever some wrong to be righting,
With self ever seeking for place,
The world has been striving and fighting
Since man was evolved out of space.
Bold history into dark regions,
His torchlight has fearlessly cast,
He shows us tribes warring in legions,
In jungles of ages long passed.

Religion, forgetting her station,
Forgetting her birthright from God,
Set nation to warring with nation
And scattered dissension abroad.
Dear creeds have made men kill each other.
Fair faith has bred hate and despair,
And brother has battled with brother
Because of a difference in prayer.

But earth has grown wiser and kinder,
For man is evolving a soul:
From wars of an age that was blinder,
We rise to a peace-girdled goal.
Where once men would murder in treason
And slaughter each other in hordes,
They now meet together and reason,
With thoughts for their weapons, not swords.

The brute in humanity dwindles,
And lessens as time speeds along,
And the spark of Divinity kindles
And blazes up brightly and strong.
The seer can behold in the distance
The race that shall people the world;
Strong men of a godlike existence
Unarmed, and with war banners furled.

No longer the bloodthirsty savage
Man’s vast spirit strength shall unfold;
And tales of red warfare and ravage
Shall seem like ghost stories of old.
For the booming of guns and the rattle
Of carnage and conflict shall cease,
And the bugle call, leading to battle,
Shall change to a pæan of peace.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

French writers on war and peace

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Jules Claretie
(As cited by Leo Tolstoy)

A sensible man can but have one opinion on the question of war and peace. Humanity was created to live – to live for the purpose of perfecting its existence by peaceful labor. The mutual relations of cordiality which are promoted and preached by the Universal Congress of Peace may be but a dream perhaps, yet certainly is the most delightful of dreams. The vision of the land of promise is ever before our eyes, and upon the soil of the future the harvest will ripen, secure from the plowing of the projectile, of the crushing of cannon-wheels.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

American writers on peace and against war

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Martha Lavinia Hoffman
The Song of Peace

The war-song and the battle-hymn
Their stirring notes have stilled;
That oft in vally, ghastly grim,
Brave soldier-hearts have thrilled.
Then wake a new and nobler strain,
And may it never cease;
A better song, a sweeter song,
The glorious song of Peace.

Within our country’s broadest bound
Is seen no martialed host;
No wrathful cannon’s roars resound
To quake from coast to coast.
No wounded soldier waits his end,
No captive his release;
No anxious, troubled guards defend
The blessed throne of Peace.

But Youth goes forth to fight and win,
Where no red sabers shine;
And Age rejoices that war’s din
Jars not on life’s decline.
And Love, whose heart-strings were her chains,
Smiles in war’s long surcease;
Whose tears were blood, a princess reigns,
In all the realm of Peace.

In war – a country’s hopes stagnate,
In war – her strong are slain.
In war – dark evils desecrate
Her council hall and fane.
In war – with wings of omen dark
Her wrongs and debts increase,
Prosperity and progress mark
The golden realm of Peace.

Then swell the chorus loud and long
‘Till it reverberates,
Thanksgiving hymn and natal song,
Of our United States.
And be our nation’s greatest boast,
O’er wrong and hate’s decrease;
To louder swell from coast to coast,
The triumph song of Peace.

====

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

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William Tennant
Ode to Peace

Daughter of God! that sitt’st on high
Amid the dances of the sky,
And guidest with thy gentle sway
The planets on their tuneful way;
Sweet Peace! shall ne’er again
The smile of thy most holy face,
From thine ethereal dwelling-place,
Rejoice the wretched, weary race
Of discord-breathing men?
Too long, O gladness-giving Queen!
Thy tarrying in heaven has been;
Too long o’er this fair blooming world
The flag of blood has been unfurled,
Polluting God’s pure day;
Whilst, as each maddening people reels,
War onward drives his scythed wheels,
And at his horses’ bloody heels
Shriek Murder and Dismay.

Oft have I wept to hear the cry
Of widow wailing bitterly;
To see the parent’s silent tear
For children fallen beneath the spear;
And I have felt so sore
The sense of human guilt and woe,
That I, in Virtue’s passioned glow,
Have cursed (my soul was wounded so)
The shape of man I bore!
Then come from thy serene abode,
Thou gladness-giving child of God!
And cease the world’s ensanguined strife,
And reconcile my soul to life;
For much I long to see,
Ere I shall to the grave descend,
Thy hand its blessed branch extend,
And to the world’s remotest end
Wave Love and Harmony!

====

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

French writers on war and peace

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François Coppée

On the battleship Trident:

“Pray God we may never have to us this fearful machine of war. I was stifled in the iron monster, where all the inventions of modern genius are united for destruction and death. The enormous guns sphered like bottles, the great mortars for throwing shells, all the strange and fearful appliances from which the touch of the commander on an electric button placed in his cabin can call forth fire and death inspire mysterious terror, a shudder at the tragic mystery. As I left the floating citadel I could but curse the progress which results in these refined cruelties and horrors. God preserve us, I repeat, from scientific war, the worst of any; and let us hope the moral effect of these structures, which have cost so much labor, talent and money, will be an avoidance, a prevention of the conflicts for which they are made.”

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

Lewis Morris: Selections on war and peace

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Lewis Morris

From Helen

The glittering panoply, the bold young hearts,
Athirst for fame of war, and with the night
The broken spear, the shattered helm, the plume
Dyed red with blood, the ghastly dying face,
And nerveless limbs laid lifeless.

***

From Herakles

For ever from the toilsome days I gave
To the suffering race of men. And yet, indeed,
Methinks they suffer still…
Treacheries come, and wars,
And slay them still. Vaulting ambition leaps
And falls in bloodshed still.

***

From Gwen

The powers of Pain and Wrong,
Immeasurably strong,
Assail our souls, and chill with common doubt
Clear brain and heart devout:
War, Pestilence, and Famine, as of old,
The lust of the flesh, the baser lust of gold,
Vex us and harm us still…

***

From The Ode of Love

Great empires fall;
The onward march of Man seems spent;
The nations rot in dull content;
The blight of war, a bitter flood,
From continent to continent,
Surges in waves of blood;
The light of knowledge sinks, the fire of thought burns low…

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

Horace Smith: Selections on peace and war

Horace Smith: The hero-butchers of the sword

Horace Smith: Manufactured to machines for killing human creatures

Horace Smith: The trade of man-butchery. The soldier and the sailor.

Horace Smith: Weapon gathering dust

Horace Smith: When War’s ensanguined banner shall be furl’d

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

Women writers on peace and war

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Helen Maria Williams
From Ode To Peace

She comes, benign enchantress, heav’n born PEACE!
With mercy beaming in her radiant eye;
She bids the horrid din of battle cease,
And at her glance the savage passions die.
‘Tis Nature’s festival, let earth rejoice,
And pour to Liberty exulting songs,
In distant regions, with according voice,
Let Man the vict’ry bless, its prize to Man belongs.

====

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

Horace Smith: Selections on peace and war

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Horace Smith
From Projects and Companies

Better our superflux to waste
On peaceful schemes, howe’er misplaced.
Than war and its abuses…

***

From Third Poetical Epistle

Another class there was, in trappings gay,
Fine colours – laces – feathers – ribbons – wreaths,
Who let themselves for hire, to kill and slay,
For which they carried earring knives in sheaths;
Of shoulder-knots, and liveried array,
Prouder than any popinjay that breathes;
And what was strange, the women seemed to love
These men-destroyers other men above.

***

From Charade (Barrack)

My Third is fashion’d to enfold
Strange implements of war. – Behold
Those frames with human features;
By time and artificial means
They’re manufactured to machines
For killing human creatures.
Obedient moves – east, west, north, south,
Up to the breach, or cannon’s mouth:
Each automatic figure, –
‘Gainst friend or foe, whate’er the cause.
With equal nonchalance he draws
His death dispensing-trigger.
Enslaved alike in frame and mind.
Life’s object for its means resign’d,
What gains th’unlucky varlet?
Dying, he sleeps on honours couch,
And living, flaunts with empty pouch.
In outward gold and scarlet.
Never were muscles, bones, and will.
By such self-sacrificing skill,
Made neuter, passive, active.
Machine! thou’rt mechanism’s pride.
But never was its art applied
To purpose less attractive!

====

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

French writers on war and peace

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André Maurois
From The Family Circle
Translated by Hamish Miles

The killing machine started up with pitiless smoothness. Just as the aprons of the cards slowly and steadily bore the flocks of wool to the hard-pointed rollers that gripped and tore them, so did courage and fear draw this peaceable town into war and carry out the smooth sifting of death. In one single day all the young men vanished. The red-eyed women came back alone to silent houses. The the older men appeared in uniform…

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

Lewis Morris: Selections on war and peace

Lewis Morris: The blight of war surges in waves of blood

Lewis Morris: The evil blight of war torments the race from age to age

Lewis Morris: Put off the curse of war

Lewis Morris: Red war, the dungeon, and the stake

Lewis Morris: When the cannons roar and the trumpets blare no longer

Lewis Morris: White-winged Peace triumphs over War’s red rapine

Lewis Morris: Who will free us from the dreadful past of war and hatred?

Lewis Morris: The world rang with the fierce shouts of war and cries of pain

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

French writers on war and peace

Remy de Gourmont: Getting drunk at the dirty cask of militarism

====

Remy de Gourmont
From Mr. Antiphilos, Satyr
Translated by John Howard

The great gods no longer descending to an earth soiled by war, ownership, gold and those human laws which so badly translate the gentle divine laws, we remain the sole immortals that a herdsman can chance upon at the fall of day, as he walks along the path…They say the golden age will return. Let us hope so.

***

She faithfully returns, as she has promised, bringing on each trip a quantity of golden money with the most diverse effigies: I would never have supposed that the world contained so many tyrants. If they wage war, as was customary in the old days, in what state must the world be…?

***

Love is serious. When one has deep sensibility, love can cause tears; laughter, never. It is only among mortals that love is accompanied with laughter. The gods never laugh, except at the silliness of mankind.

***

Like nature, the gods exist only at the instant you speak and think of them, and as soon as your attention is distracted from divine things, they fall again into the dim, pantheistic immensity where their lives glide by, mute, deep and plant-like.

***

We are all,children of destiny and our immortal life is but a succession of mortal lives badly joined to each other by the confused mortar of recollection.

====

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

Lewis Morris: Selections on war and peace

====

Lewis Morris

From The Youth of Thought

Fulfilled with thoughts, more fair and dear
Than all the lighter joys of yore,
Immeasurable hopes brought near,
And Heaven laid open more and more.

But not with love and peace alone
Time came, which older joys could take;
But with fierce brand and hopeless groan,
Red war, the dungeon, and the stake…

***

From Tantalus

The glitter of the gems, the precious webs
Plundered from every clime by cruel wars
That strewed the sands with corpses…

And only cared for power; content to shed
Rivers of innocent blood, if only thus
I might appease my thirst. Until I grew
A monster gloating over blood and pain.

***

From A Cynic’s Day-Dream

If fate should grant me such a home,
So sweet the tranquil days would come,
I should not need, I trust, to sink
My weariness in lust or drink.
Scant pleasure should I think to gain
From endless scenes of death and pain;
‘Twould little profit me to slay
A thousand innocents a day;
I should not much delight to tear
With wolfish dogs the shrieking hare;
With horse and hound to track to death
A helpless wretch that gasps for breath;
To make the fair bird check its wing,
And drop, a dying, shapeless thing;
To leave the joy of all the wood
A mangled heap of fur and blood,
Or else escaping, but in vain,
To pine, a shattered wretch, in pain;
Teeming, perhaps, or doomed to see
Its young brood starve in misery;
With neither risk nor labour, still
To live for nothing but to kill –
I dare not! If perplexed I am
Between the tiger and the lamb;
If fate ordain that these shall give
Their poor brief lives that I may live:
Whate’er the law that bids them die,
Others shall butcher them, not I,
Not such my work. Surely the Lord,
Who made the devils by a word,
Not men, but those who’d wield them well
Gave these sad tortures of his Hell.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

George Meredith: Selections on peace and war

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George Meredith
From Il y a cent ans

What figures will be shown the century hence?
What lands intact?  We do but know that Power
From piety divorced, though seen immense,
Shall sink on envy of the humblest flower.

Our cry for cradled Peace, while men are still
The three-parts brute which smothers the divine,
Heaven answers: Guard it with forethoughtful will,
Or buy it; all your gains from War resign.

====

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Greek and Roman writers on war and peace

Homer: The great gods are never pleased with violent deeds

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Homer
From The Illiad
Translated by George Meredith

Dedicated to the Council at the Hague, 1899

These two combining strength and craft had snared,
Enmeshed, bound fast with thongs, discreetly caged
The blood-shedder, the terrible Lord of War;
Destroyer, ravager, superb in plumes;
The barren furrower of anointed fields;
The scarlet heel in towns, foul smoke to sky,
Her hated enemy, too long her scourge:
Great Ares.  And they gagged his trumpet mouth
When they had seized on his implacable spear,
Hugged him to reedy helplessness despite
His godlike fury startled from amaze.
For he had eyed them nearing him in play,
The giant cubs, who gambolled and who snarled,
Unheeding his fell presence, by the mount
Ossa, beside a brushwood cavern; there
On Earth’s original fisticuffs they called
For ease of sharp dispute: whereat the God,
Approving, deemed that sometime trained to arms,
Good servitors of Ares they would be,
And ply the pointed spear to dominate
Their rebel restless fellows, villain brood
Vowed to defy Immortals.  So it chanced
Amusedly he watched them, and as one
The lusty twain were on him and they had him.
Breath to us, Powers of air, for laughter loud!
Cock of Olympus he, superb in plumes!
Bound like a wheaten sheaf by those two babes!
Because they knew our Mother Gaea loathed him,
Knew him the famine, pestilence and waste;
A desolating fire to blind the sight
With splendour built of fruitful things in ashes;
The gory chariot-wheel on cries for justice;
Her deepest planted and her liveliest voice,
Heard from the babe as from the broken crone.
Behold him in his vessel of bronze encased,
And tumbled down the cave.

***

Among the wheat-blades proud of stalk; beneath
Young vine-leaves pushing timid fingers forth,
Confidently to cling.  And when brown corn
Swayed armied ranks with softened cricket song,
With gold necks bent for any zephyr’s kiss;
When vine-roots daily down a rubble soil
Drank fire of heaven athirst to swell the grape;
When swelled the grape, and in it held a ray,
Rich issue of the embrace of heaven and earth;
The very eye of passion drowsed by excess,
And yet a burning lion for the spring;
Then in that time of general cherishment,
Sweet breathing balm and flutes by cool wood-side,
He the harsh rouser of ire being absent, caged,
Then did good Gaea’s children gratefully
Lift hymns to Gods they judged, but praised for peace,
Delightful Peace, that answers Reason’s call
Harmoniously and images her Law;
Reflects, and though short-lived as then, revives,
In memories made present on the brain
By natural yearnings, all the happy scenes;
The picture of an earth allied to heaven;
Between them the known smile behind black masks;
Rightly their various moods interpreted;
And frolic because toilful children borne
With larger comprehension of Earth’s aim
At loftier, clearer, sweeter, by their aid.

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

George Meredith: Selections on peace and war

George Meredith: All your gains from War resign

George Meredith: Bellona’s mad halloo

George Meredith: The Olive Branch

George Meredith: On the Danger of War

George Meredith: War wife, as good as widowed

George Meredith: War’s rivers of blood no crown for future generations

Homer: Caging the terrible Lord of War

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Greek and Roman writers on war and peace

Xenophon: Begin wars as tardily, end them as speedily as possible

Xenophon: Socrates’ war sophistry; civil crimes are martial virtues

Xenophon: War as obsession, warfare as mistress

====

Xenophon
From Cyropaedia
Translated by Walter Miller

“Well, Cyrus, I used to think that you surpassed all other men in that you were the greatest general; and now, I swear by the gods, you seem actually to excel even more in kindness than in generalship.”

“Aye, by God,” answered Cyrus; “and what is more, I assure you that I take much more pleasure in showing forth my deeds of kindness than ever I did in my deeds of generalship.”

“How so?” asked Gobryas.

“Because,” said he, “in the one field, one must necessarily do harm to men; in the other, only good.”

***

At day-break he took his stand with his army between the two and summoned the leaders of the two factions. And when they saw one another they were indignant, for they both thought they had been duped. Adusius, however, addressed them as follows:

“Gentlemen, I gave you my oath that I would without treachery enter your walls for the advantage of those who admitted me. If, therefore, I destroy either party of you, I think that I have come in to the injury of the Carians; whereas, if I can secure peace for you and security for all to till the fields, I think I am here for your advantage. Now, therefore, from this day you must live together like friends, till your lands without fear of one another, and intermarry your children one party with the other; and if any one in defiance of these regulations attempts to make trouble, Cyrus, and we with him, will be that man’s enemies.”

After that, the gates of the city were opened, the streets filled up with people passing to and fro, and the farms with labourers; they celebrated their festivals together, and peace and joy reigned everywhere.

***

“Next to the gods, however, show respect also to all the race of men as they continue in perpetual succession; for the gods, do not hide you away in darkness, but your works must ever live on in the sight of all men; and if they are pure and untainted with unrighteousness, they will make your power manifest among all mankind. But if you conceive any unrighteous schemes against each other, you will forfeit in the eyes of all men your right to be trusted. For no one would be able any longer to trust you – not even if he very much desired to do so – if he saw either of you wronging that one who has the first claim to the other’s love.”

In progress

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

George Meredith: Selections on peace and war

====

George Meredith
From The Empty Purse

Ask what crown
Comes of our tides of the blood at war,
For men to bequeath generations down!

***

When our Earth we have seen, and have linked
With the home of the Spirit to whom we unfold,
Imprisoned humanity open will throw
Its fortress gates, and the rivers of gold
For the congregate friendliness flow.

***

Nor History written in blood or in foam,
For vendetta of Parties in cursing accursed.

====

From To the Comic Spirit

These, that would have men still of men be foes,
Eternal fox to prowl and pike to feed;
Would keep our life the whirly pool
Of turbid stuff dishonouring History…

====

From Napoléon

Up withered avenues of waste-blood war,
To the pitiless red mounts of fire afume,
As ’twere the world’s arteries opened!  Woe the race!

***

Poured streams of Europe’s veins the flood
Full Rhine or Danube rolls off morning-tide
Through shadowed reaches into crimson-dyed:
And Rhine and Danube knew her gush of blood
Down the plucked roots the deepest in her breast.

====

Philosophy is Life’s one match for Fate.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Greek and Roman writers on war and peace

Polybius: The bestialization of man by war

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Polybius
From The Histories
Translated by W.R. Paton

Peace is a blessing for which we all pray to the gods; we submit to every suffering from the desire to attain it, and it is the only one of the so‑called good things in life to which no man refuses this title. If then there be any people which, while able by right and with all honour to obtain from the Greeks perpetual and undisputed peace, neglect this object or esteem any other of greater importance, everyone would surely agree that they are much in the wrong. Perhaps indeed they might plead that such a manner of life exposes them to the attack of neighbours bent on war and regardless of treaties. But this is a thing not likely to happen often and claiming if it does occur the aid of all the Greeks; while to secure themselves against any local and temporary damage, amidst a plentiful supply of wealth, such as will probably be theirs if they enjoy constant peace, they will be in no want of foreign mercenary soldiers to protect them at the place and time required. But now simply from fear of rare and improbable perils they expose their country and their properties to constant war and devastation.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

Lewis Morris: Selections on war and peace

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Lewis Morris
From The New Order

There shall come a time when brotherhood shines stronger
Than the narrow bounds which now distract the world;
When the cannons roar and the trumpets blare no longer,
And the ironclad rusts, and battle flags are furled…

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

Lewis Morris: Selections on war and peace

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Lewis Morris
From The Living Past

O faithful souls that watch and yearn,
Expectant of the coming light,
With kindling hearts and eyes that burn
With hope to see the rule of right;

The time of peace and of good will,
When the thick clouds of wrong and pain
Roll up as from a shining hill
And never more descend again…

Though war and hatred come to cease
And sorrow be no more, nor sin,
And in their stead an endless peace
Its fair unbroken reign begin, –

What comfort have ye? What shall blot
The memories of bitter years…?

For that which has been, still must live,
And ‘neath the shallow Present last,
Oh who will sweet oblivion give,
Who free us from the dreadful Past?

====

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

Lewis Morris: Selections on war and peace

====

Lewis Morris
From The Wanderer

The strong bold sway that held mankind in thrall,
Soldier and jurist marching side by side,
Till came the sure slow blight, when all the world
Grew sick, and swooned, and died;

Again the long dark night, when Learning dozed
Safe in her cloister, and the world without
Rang with fierce shouts of war and cries of pain,
Base triumph, baser rout…

And how, when worthier souls bore rule, to hold
Faction more dear than Truth, or stoop to cheat,
With cozening words and shallow flatteries
The Solons of the street?

Or, failing this, to wear a hireling sword –
Ready, whate’er the cause, to kill and slay…

====

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Greek and Roman writers on war and peace

Pausanias: Peace cradling Wealth in her arms

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Pausanias
From Description of Greece
Translated by J.G. Frazer

When Lichas arrived the Spartans were seeking the bones of Orestes in accordance with an oracle. Now Lichas inferred that they were buried in a smithy, the reason for this inference being this. Everything that he saw in the smithy he compared with the oracle from Delphi, likening to the winds the bellows, for that they too sent forth a violent blast, the hammer to the “stroke,” the anvil to the “counterstroke” to it, while the iron is naturally a “woe to man,” because already men were using iron in warfare. In the time of those called heroes the god would have called bronze a woe to man.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Greek and Roman writers on war and peace

Xenophon: Guile without guilt. Peace and joy reigned everywhere.

Xenophon: Socrates’ war sophistry; civil crimes are martial virtues

Xenophon: War as obsession, warfare as mistress

====

Xenophon
From Hellenica
Translated by Carleton L. Brownson

“The right course, indeed, would have been for us not to take up arms against one another in the beginning…But if it is indeed ordered of the gods that wars should come among men, then we ought to begin war as tardily as we can, and, when it has come, to bring it to an end as speedily as possible.”

***

“Moreover, we all know that wars are forever breaking out and being concluded, and that we – if not now, still at some future time – shall desire peace again. Why, then, should we wait for the time when we shall have become exhausted by a multitude of ills, and not rather conclude peace as quickly as possible before anything irremediable happens?

“Again, I for my part do not commend those men who, when they have become competitors in the games and have already been victorious many times and enjoy fame, are so fond of contest that they do not stop until they are defeated and so end their athletic training; nor on the other hand do I commend those dicers who, if they win one success, throw for double stakes, for I see that the majority of such people become utterly impoverished.

“We, then, seeing these things, ought never to engage in a contest of such a sort that we shall either win all or lose all, but ought rather to become friends of one another while we are still strong and successful. For thus we through you, and you through us, could play even a greater part in Greece than in times gone by.”

***

When these things had taken place, the opposite of what all men believed would happen was brought to pass. For since well-nigh all the people of Greece had come together and formed themselves in opposing lines, there was no one who did not suppose that if a battle were fought, those who proved victorious would be the rulers and those who were defeated would be their subjects; but the deity so ordered it that both parties set up a trophy as though victorious and neither tried to hinder those who set them up, that both gave back the dead under a truce as though victorious, and both received back their dead under a truce as though defeated, and that while each party claimed to be victorious, neither was found to be any better off, as regards either additional territory, or city, or sway, than before the battle took place; but there was even more confusion and disorder in Greece after the battle than before.

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

Thomas Love Peacock: Selections on war and peace

Thomas Love Peacock: Frenzied war’s ensanguined reign

Thomas Love Peacock: The god of battle, the last deep groan of agony

Thomas Love Peacock: I’ll make my verses rattle with the din of war and battle

Thomas Love Peacock: Ne’er thy sweet echoes swell again with war’s demoniac yell!

Thomas Love Peacock: We spilt blood enough to swim in, we orphaned many children and widowed many women

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

Gerald Massey: Curst, curst be war, the World’s most fatal glory!

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Gerald Massey

From The Old Flag

Statesmen have drawn back meek and mute,
Or pardon begged from bullying foes,
Whene’er a Military boot
Was stampt upon retreating toes.

***

From Love’s Fairy-Ring

Away, you Lords of Murderdom;
Away, O Hate, and Strife,
Hence revellers, reeling drunken from
Your feast of human life.

***

From Hugh Miller’s Grave

He was a Hero true as ever stept
In the Forlorn Hope of a warring world;
And from opposing circumstance his palm
Drew loftier stature, and a lustier strength.

***

From Lady Laura

He had wept his pain in a fiery rain, and a calm came o’er his tears,
As a vision of sweet peace comes treading down
War’s cruel spears.

***

From England and Louis Bonaparte

Alas, poor Italy!
The Storm of War
From its fire-mountain throne sweeps burning down,
Its purple lava-mantle trails behind,
Embracing all and blasting all its folds,
A sea of soldiery breaks over her;
Her fair face darkens in the shadow of Swords;
Destruction drives his ploughshare thro’ her soil…

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

Thomas Love Peacock: Selections on war and peace

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Thomas Love Peacock
From Stanzas Written at Sea

O blest, trebly blest, is the peasant’s condition!
From courts and from cities reclining afar,
He hears not the summons of senseless ambition,
The tempests of ocean, and the tumults of war.
Round the standard of battle though thousands may rally
When the trumpet of glory is pealing aloud,
He dwells in the shade of his own native valley,
And turns the same earth as his forefathers ploughed.

In realms far remote while the merchant is toiling,
In search of that wealth he might never enjoy;
The land of his foes while the soldier is spoiling,
When honour commands him to rise and destroy;
Through mountainous billows, with whirlwinds contending,
While the mariner bounds over the wide-raging seas,
Still peace, o’er the peasant her mantle extending,
Brings health and content in the sigh of the breeze.

***

From Quintetto

Mr. Killthedead: I’ll make my verses rattle with the din of war and battle,
For war doth increase sa-la-ry, ry, ry…

***

From The Massacre of the Britons

The sacred ground, where chiefs of yore
The everlasting fire adored,
The solemn pledge of safety bore,
And breathed not of the treacherous sword.

***

From Florence and Blanchefor

The nightingale prevailed at length,
Her pleading had such charms;
So eloquence can conquer strength,
And arts can conquer arms.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

Thomas Love Peacock: Selections on war and peace

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Thomas Love Peacock
From The Genius of the Thames

There peace her vestal lamps displays,
Undimmed by mad ambition’s blaze,
And shuns, in the sequestered glen,
The storms that shake the haunts of men,
Where mean intrigue, and sordid gain,
And frenzied war’s ensanguined reign,
And narrow cares, and wrathful strife,
Dry up the sweetest springs of life.

Oh! might my steps that darkly roam,
Attain at last thy mountain home,
And rest, from earthly trammels free,
With peace, and liberty, and thee!
Around while faction’s tempest sweeps,
Like whirlwinds o’er the wintry deep,
And, down the headlong vortex torn,
The vain, misjudging crowd is borne;
‘Twere sweet to mark, re-echoing far,
The rage of the eternal war,
That dimly heard, at distance swelling,
Endears, but not disturbs, thy dwelling.

***

Where are the states of ancient fame?
Athens, and Sparta’s victor-name,
And all that propped, in war and peace,
The arms, and nobler arts, of Greece?
All-grasping Rome, that proudly hurled
Her mandates o’er the prostrate world,
Long heard mankind her chains deplore,
And fell, as Carthage fell before.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Greek and Roman writers on war and peace

Pindar: The arts versus war

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Pindar
From On the Eclipse of the Sun
Translated by Thomas Love Peacock

On thy darken’d course attending,
Dost thou signs of sorrow bring?
Shall the summer’s rains descending,
Blast the promise of the spring?

Or shall war, in evil season,
Spread unbounded ruin round?
Or the baleful hand of Treason
Our domestic joys confound?

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

Thomas Love Peacock: Selections on war and peace

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Thomas Love Peacock
From The Genius of the Thames

Ah! whither are they flown,
Those days of peace and love
So sweetly sung by bards of elder time?
When in the startling grove
The battle-blast was blown,
And misery came, and cruelty and crime,
Far from the desolated hills,
Polluted meads, and blood-stained rills,
Their guardian genii flew;
And through the woodlands, waste and wild,
Where erst perennial summer smiled,
Infuriate passions prowled, and wintry whirlwinds blew.

***

Ah! what avails, that heaven has rolled
A silver stream o’er sands of gold,
And decked the plane, and reared the grove,
Fit dwelling for primeval love;
If man defiles the beauteous scene
And stain with blood the smiling green;
If man’s worst passions there arise,
To counteract the favoring skies;
If rapine there, and murder reign
And human tigers prowl for gain,
And tyrants foul and trembling slaves,
Pollute their shores, and curse their waves?

Far other charms than these possess,
Oh Thames, thy verdant margin bless:
Where peace, with freedom, hand-in-hand,
Walks forth along the sparkling strand,
And cheerful toil and glowing health…

***

O’er states and empires, near and far,
While rolls the fiery surge of war,
The country’s wealth and power increase,
Thy vales and cities smile in peace…

***

Oh! ne’er may thy sweet echoes swell
Again with war’s demoniac yell!

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Greek and Roman writers on war and peace

Dio Cassius: Weeping and lamenting the fratricide of war

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Dio Cassius
From Roman History
Translated by Earnest Cary

After drafting these compacts and reducing them to writing they deposited the documents with the Vestal Virgins, and then exchanged pledges and embraced one another. Upon this a great and mighty shout arose from the mainland and from the ships at the same moment. For many soldiers and many civilians who were present suddenly cried out all together, being terribly tired of the war and strongly desirous of peace, so that even the mountains resounded; and thereupon great panic and alarm came upon them, and many died of no other cause, while many others perished by being trampled under foot or suffocated.

Those who were in the small boats did not wait to reach the land itself, but jumped out into the sea, and those on land rushed out into the water. Meanwhile they embraced one another while swimming and threw their arms around one another’s necks as they dived, making a spectacle of varied sights and sounds. Some knew that their relatives and associates were living, and seeing them now present, gave way to unrestrained joy. Others, supposing that those dear to them had already died, saw them now unexpectedly and for a long time were at a loss what to do, and were rendered speechless, at once distrusting the sight they saw and praying that it might be true, and they would not accept the recognition as true until they had called their names and had heard their voices in answer; then, indeed, they rejoiced as if their friends had been brought back to life again, but as they must yield perforce to a flood of joy, they could not refrain from tears.

Again, some who were unaware that their dearest ones had perished and thought they were alive and present, went about seeking for them and asking every one they met regarding them. As long as they could learn nothing definite they were like madmen and were reduced to despair, both hoping to find them and fearing that they were dead, unable either to give up hope in view of their longing or to give up to grief in view of their hope. But when at last they learned the truth, they would tear their hair and rend their garments, calling upon the lost by name as if their voices could reach them and giving way to grief as if their friends had just then died and were lying there before their eyes. And even if any had no such cause themselves for joy or grief, they were at least affected by the experiences of the rest; for they either rejoiced with him that was glad or grieved with him that mourned, and so, even if they were free from an experience of their own, yet they could not remain indifferent on account of their comradeship with the rest. Accordingly they became neither sated with joy nor ashamed of grief, because they were all affected in the same way, and they spent the entire day as well as the greater part of the night in these demonstrations.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

Horace Smith: Selections on peace and war

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Horace Smith
From On an Ancient Lance, Hanging in an Armoury

Once in the breezy coppice didst thou dance,
And nightingales amid thy foliage sang;
Form’d by man’s cruel art into a lance,
Oft hast thou pierced, (the while the welkin rang
With trump and drum, shoutings and battle clang,)
Some foeman’s heart. Pride, pomp, and circumstance,
Have left thee, now, and thou dost silent hang,
From age to age, in deep and dusty trance.

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war 

Thomas Love Peacock: Selections on war and peace

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Thomas Love Peacock
From Palmyra

How oft, in scenes like these, the pensive sage
Has mourn’d the hand of FATE, severely just,
WAR’s wasteful course, and DEATH’s unsparing rage,
And dark OBLIVION, frowning in the dust!
Has marked the tombs, that kings o’erthrown declare,
Just wept their fall, and sunk to join them there!

***

See! the mighty God of Battle
Spreads abroad his crimson train!
Discord’s myriad voices rattle
O’er the terror-shaken plain.
Banners stream, and helmets glare,
Show’ring arrows hiss in air;
Echoing through the darken’d skies,
Wildly-mingling murmurs rise,
The clash of splendor-beaming steel,
The buckler ringing hollowly,
The cymbal’s silver-sounding peal,
The last deep groan of agony…

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Greek and Roman writers on war and peace

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Petronius
Dreams
Translated by Thomas Love Peacock

Dreams, which, beneath the hov’ring shades of night,
Sport with the ever-restless minds of men,
Descend not from the gods. Each busy brain
Creates its own. For when the chains of sleep
Have bound the weary, and the lighten’d mind
Unshackled plays, the actions of the light
Become renew’d in darkness. Then the chief,
Who shakes the world with war, who joys alone
In blazing cities, and in wasted plains,
O’erthrown battalions sees, and dying kings,
And fields o’verflow’d with blood.