===
Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
British writers on peace and war
Gerald Massey: Sweet peace comes treading down war’s cruel spears
===
Gerald Massey
From Eighteen Hundred and Forty-Eight
Curst, curst be war, the World’s most fatal glory!
Ye wakening nations, burst its guilty thrall!
Time waits with out-stretcht hand to shroud the gory
Grim glaive of strife behind Oblivion’s pall.
The Tyrant laughs at swords, the cannon’s rattle
Thunders no terror on his murderous soul.
Thought, Mind, must conquer Might, and in this battle
The Warrior’s cuirass, or the Sophist’s stole,
Shall blunt no lance of light, no onset backward roll.
Old Poets tell us of a golden age,
When earth was guiltless…
Source