Michael Drayton: All your banks with peace preserved be

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
British writers on peace and war
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Michael Drayton
From Eclogue III
O! See what troupes of nymphs have been sporting on the strands
And they’ve been blessed nymphs of peace, with olives in their hands.

And water you the blessed root of the green olive tree,
With whose sweet shadow all your banks with peace preserved be…
That fame may be your fruit, the boughs preserved by peace,
And let the mournful cypress die, now storms and tempest cease.
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O! see what troups of Nimphs been sporting on the strands
And they been blessed Nimphs of peace, with Oliues in their hands.

And water thou the blessed roote of that greene Oliue tree,
With whose sweete shadow, al thy bancks with peace preserued be,

That fame may be thy fruit, the boughes preseru’d by peace,
And let the mournful Cipres die, now stormes and tempest cease.

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