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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
American writers on peace and against war
J.A. Edgerton: A Song of Peace
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J.A. Edgerton
A New Sermon
I come to preach on the text of love
From the gospel of brotherhood;
To help if I may in finding a way
That leads to the higher good;
To picture the light that is shining bright
On the Future’s upturned face,
And to whisper a hope whose breadth and scope
Is as wide as the human race.
It is this: the hour is almost here
When the races shall rise as one,
And shall all join hands from the thousand lands
That are kissed by a common sun;
When the cannon’s roar shall be heard no more
And the war flags shall be furled;
When the lily-white banner of peace shall float
O’er a union of all the world.
For God is weary of war and hate,
And the time has come at last
For the race to wake and the chains to break
That bind it unto the past;
To list to the Christ who died for men,
And to hearken unto the call
Of the voice of the common divinity
That stirs in the hearts of all.
Across the morn of the century,
In visions I turn my gaze
To the heights sublime that the race shall climb
To better and grander days.
As earth whirls on from dawn to dawn
Through the seasons that are to be,
There is some sweet day that is on its way
When the whole world shall be free.
There are glimpses of glory in Paradise,
But they all are not so bright
As our own dear earth will be, if we
Can open the reign of right;
If we, as brothers, will love each other,
And work as best we can
In the glorious labor of lifting our fellow man.
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