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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
British writers on peace and war
Women writers on peace and war
Mary Heron: Ode on the General Peace
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Mary Heron
From On the Capitulation of Lord Cornwallis in America
What eye but must with gushing tears o’erflow?
What sympathetic heart but bleed with woe?
See those, with frantic grief distracted, run,
And mourn for fathers, brothers, husbands, sons!
Each dear relative, (now, perhaps, no more)
Stabb’d to the heart, lay weltring in their gore,
Till welcome death appeas’d the mortal strife,
And kindly clos’d the avenues of life…
“Curst be that fatal day which first began,
“In horrid war to found the bloody plan;
“Sure some internal phrenzy seiz’d my mind,
“And made me to the ties of nature blind!
“See all around what devastations rage,
“Brothers with brothers, fathers with sons engage;
“Invet’rate enemies the dearest friends,
“Whilst each his life in the contention ends…”
Bid brazen-throated war and discord cease,
And fill her realms with universal peace;
Her bright, unsullied majesty restore,
And make her great and happy as before…
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