==== Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts British writers on peace and war Joseph Fawcett: War Elegy ==== Joseph FawcettFrom The Art of War Afflicted Wisdom weeps that forms erect,Which might be men, should be no more than brutes;But, being what they are, she marvels notThat furious thus each other they devour.The scene she gazes with a wild amaze,O’er which she shivers agued and aghast,Doubting her sense! incredulous she lives!Is the cool carnage of the cultur’d world! In the cold cabinet serenely plann’d!And with calm skill, and blood that boils not, wreak’d!War’s rul’d, methodic, mathematic fields,Where fate in geometric figures frowns,Curiously stern! a low’ring diagram!Where sober warriors, in square array,With science kill, with ceremony slay,Thunder with apathy, and thin mankindWith looks compos’d, in rows compact arrang’d!A tranquil tragedy! where battle trick’d,Bedecks destruction, and makes ruin gay!In spruce paterre where tulip terrors stand,A scene of splendid horror! while o’er allThe field’s dire slaughter “peaceful thought” presides!Wit, radiant spirit! wheels the cunning war,Instructs horrific Mars which way to rush,And shows the dev’lish engines where to belchTheir fiery bolts! – This is the dreadful scene,Acted on literate Europe’s lucid stage;Where man is known for what he is, for moreThan meets the eye, a mine of inward wealth,That asks but to be dug and into dayDrawn out, a splendid treasure to displayOf golden joys, and sterling happiness!Where moral glories strike Conception’s eye;Where peaceful laurels court Ambition’s hand;Where Reason’s, Virtue’s victories, inviteTh’ aspiring breast; and thousand varied joysMake life delightful and its calms endear!This is the scene, the gallop of the bloodWhose horror stops, and bids the current creep!This PLACID sweep of human life away,In human life where so much worth is seen!These chess-board battles, where unpassion’d men,Like things of wood, by them that thoughtful play,Are mov’d about, the puppets of the game!These sober whirlwinds of the polish’d world,That not from fierce emotion take their rage,Blown by cold Interest; by calm Art bestrid;On whoſe broad wings, director of their way,Afflicting image! form’d in other scenes,And fairer far, to soar, ah, much mis-spher’d!Bright GENIUS rides the Angel of the Storm. Civiliz’d war! – How strangely pair’d appearThese words in pensive Rumination’s ear!Civiliz’d war! – Say, did the mouth of man,Fantastic marrier of words, before,Two so unmatch’d, so much each other’s hate,With force tyrannic, ere together yoke?Civiliz’d war! – THANKS, gentle Europe! thanks,For having dress’d the hideous monster out,And hid his nature in so soft a name,That weak, hysterical HumanityMight hear with leſs of horror, he is loose.Hail monster clipt! shorn of his shaggy mane,His horrid front with flow’rs and ribbands prank’d,Smooth, playful monster! Mixing with the roarOf forest-rage the city’s polish’d smile!That with a mild and Christian calmness kills,That with more method tears his mangled prey,And, as the copious draught of blood he swills,Disclaims the thirst the while! Thanks, thousand-foldYe gay adorners of the tragic scene!Thanks, in the name of all the friends of man,That ye have thus their shuddering appeas’d;And, piteous of their tender texture, giv’nTheir spirits, apt to startle, calm to flow,Forth from its scabbard when your wiſdom callsThe slumb’ring sword, and bids its sabbath close!Thanks, in the name of all the tremulous tribe,Too sensitive, the grateful Muse accords you;That ye have beautified the frowns of warAnd given his grimness graces, have found outPoliter slaughter, and genteely learn’dTo lay more elegantly waste the world,That ye have murder humaniz’d, discover’dMischief’s most handsome modes, and taught mankindWith form and fairest order to destroy!Of all, whose hearts your battles have bereav’d,The blessing comes upon you! Robb’d by warsSo gently wag’d, of them beneath whose shadeOf shelt’ring power their shielded weakness sat,With looks of peace and love, pale widows sing,In grateful songs, the tender spoilers sing!The fatherless their filial sorrows wipe,Forget their woes and join the just acclaim!E’en the lorn virgin, in the slain’s long list:Whose eye fell fearful on her lover’s name,O’er whose wan cheek, where beauty’s roses grew,Grief spreads its green, prophetic of her grave,Some sickly smiles of gratitude shall wear,And hush some sighs, to swell the grateful song!All, all the mourners that ye make shall blessYour mildly, amiably murderous deeds!For much it soothes the sorrows of their soul,For much it balms the bruises of their breast,That they, in whom the battle’s fury reach’dTheir rent affections, fell in polish’d fields;By softer hands, than whom the hatchet hacksIn barb’rous battle; that a smoother deathFrom finer points and glossier arms they took;And if they perish’d, perish’d by the sword,Heart-healing thought! of fair Civility!Opprest with indignation, be the MuseForgiv’n, if she forget to sacred griefThe rev’rence due, and to her serious theme;Seeking, in laughter, from her load of painSome little ease; for she hath long time lainBeneath the suffocating weight, as thusThe civil actor in this savage scene,Europe’s refin’d barbarian hath declaim’d.“How horrible the unrelenting rageAnd the coarse rudeness of unmanner’d Mars!How smooth a front our comelier battle wears!Lo! in our milder field the lovely formOf Mercy sits by Valour’s side, and oftHangs on his hand and holds its fury down.” It is this mildness, to the moral eyeSo far from soft’ning the hard crime of war,That proves the sanguinary practice guilt,And stamps the carnage murder. – Say, what priest,Sent to prepare a dungeon’d wretch to dieFor having ta’en his brother’s breath away,Would not infer, remorse had made him mad,To hear the villain seek his vice to washWith words like these? “Far fouler criminalsThe woods than me contain. The wolf is worse;How furiously he lacerates the flock!With what a rage the panther rends his prey!Mark the fierce leopard tear his mangled meal!I with much mercy murder’d whom I slew!With one, but one, one well-directed woundI gave him end; or with a drug […]
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