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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
American writers on peace and against war
Women writers on peace and war
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Laura Bell Everett
The Skein of Grievous War
Translated from the Iliad, xiv. 86
War calls and drowns the kind command
Of Peace to plow, to plant the trees,
Press back the marge of desert land
And widen out its oases.
Home vainly begs its brave to stay;
Can they be needed more afar?
The bugles sound; in armed array
They wind the skein of grievous war.
The cities need their brave to clear
The spots with foulness overgrown,
And call for those who know not fear
To work where only fear is known.
The art of living we would know;
The arts of death our souls abhor.
Stay, men, but even now they go
To weave the web of woeful war.
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