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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
British writers on peace and war
John Dryden: All your care is to provide the horrid pomp of war
John Dryden and Horace: Happy is he who trumpets summon not to war
John Dryden and Lucretius: Venus and Mars: Lull the world in universal peace
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John Dryden
From Absalom and Achitophel (1681)
In Peace the thoughts of War he coud remove
And seem’d as he were onely born for Love.
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Well knew the value of a peaceful reign;
And, looking backward with a wise afright,
Saw Seams of wounds, dishonest to the sight:
In contemplation of whose ugly Scars,
They curst the memory of Civil Wars.
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Some thought they God’s Anointed meant to slay
By Guns, invented since full many a day…
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To ply him with new Plots shall be my care;
Or plunge him deep in some Expensive War;
Which, when his Treasure can no more supply,
He must, with the Remains of Kingship, buy.
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