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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
British writers on peace and war
Richard Furness: Selections on war
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Richard Furness
From Lines Written in Sight of the Rectory, Eyam
Let warrior bards the trumpet blow,
Peace reigns in these domains,
And waves her olive sceptre o’er
The lulls, the vales, and plains.
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Peace! here no sons of glory lie,
With epitaphs of blood;
No titled madmen slumber here,
Detested by the good.
No! these were not the sons of fame,
Who wasted earth with sword and flame,
And murdered millions for a name,
To perish in the bud.
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From The Siren’s Song
Cease those soft notes! be war our strain.
Hark, hostile navies thunder,
Red slaughter strews the main,
Our tones modulate to a hideous yell
To the groans of the dying, and laughter of hell:
‘Tis glorious, they cry,
In hot battle to die.
To slaughter each other, astonishing thing!
And be buried in ocean for madman and king.
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