====
Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
British writers on peace and war
Women writers on peace and war
Charlotte Turner Smith: The lawless soldiers’ victims
Charlotte Turner Smith: Statesmen! ne’er dreading a scar, let loose the demons of war
Charlotte Turner Smith: To bathe his savage hands in human blood
====
Charlotte Turner Smith
Sonnet LXXXIII
The Sea View
The upland shepherd, as reclined he lies
On the soft turf that clothes the mountain brow,
Marks the bright sea‐line mingling with the skies;
Or from his course celestial, sinking slow,
The summer‐sun in purple radiance low,
Blaze on the western waters; the wide scene
Magnificent, and tranquil, seems to spread
Even o’er the rustic’s breast a joy serene,
When, like dark plague‐spots by the demons shed,
Charged deep with death, upon the waves, far seen,
Move the war‐freighted ships; and fierce and red,
Flash their destructive fires. The mangled dead
And dying victims then pollute the flood.
Ah, thus man spoils Heaven’s glorious works with blood!
***
Sonnet LXXVI
To a Young Man Entering the World
Go now, ingenious youth! The trying hour
Is come: The world demands that thou shouldst go
To active life: There titles, wealth, and power,
May all be purchased. Yet I joy to know
Thou wilt not pay their price. The base control
Of petty despots in their pedant reign
Already hast thou felt;and high disdain
Of tyrants is imprinted on thy soul
Not, where mistaken Glory, in the field
Rears her red banner, be thou ever found:
But, against proud Oppression raise the shield
Of patriot daring. So shalt thou renown’d
For the best virtues live; or that denied
May’st die, as Hampden or as Sydney died!
Source