====
Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
British writers on peace and war
James Hogg: Millions have bled that sycophants may rule
====
James Hogg
From The Russiadde
Others employ the immortal mind
To wrest and vex the human kind…
Another loves to rob and plunder;
O’er fields of death to guide the thunder;
And still his fev’rish mind is brewing
How to arise on others’ ruin.
The nation’s groan, for pity crying,
The fields are heaped with dead and dying!
No qualm of conscience! no disgust!
For power and rule is all his lust.
But thanks to Him who rules on high,
And lightens nature with his eye,
That few such monsters, very few
On earth these ravages renew.
Two such within an age, are sure
As much as mankind can endure,
And God in mercy oft sends fewer.
Source