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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
British writers on peace and war
Thomas Middleton: Selections on peace and ware
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Thomas Middleton
From The Wisdom of Solomon Paraphrased
A rule, not tyranny, a reign, not blood,
An empire, not a slaughter-house of lives,
A crown, not cruelty in fury’s mood,
A sceptre which restores, and not deprives;
All made to make a peace, and not a war.
By wisdom, concord’s queen and discord’s bar.
The coldest word oft cools the hottest threat.
The tyrant’s menaces the calms of peace;
Two colds augmenteth one, two heats one heat,
And makes both too extreme when both increase:
My peaceful reign shall conquer tyrants’ force,
Not arms, but words, not battle, but remorse.
Yet mighty shall I be, though war in peace,
Strong, though ability hath left his clime.
And good, because my wars and battles cease,
Or, at the least, lie smother’d in their prime…
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