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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
British writers on peace and war
Alfred Lord Tennyson: Selections on war and peace
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Alfred Lord Tennyson
From Love Though thy Land, with Love for Brought
O, yet, if Nature’s evil star
Drive men in manhood, as in youth,
To follow flying steps of Truth
Across the brazen bridge of war –
If New and Old, disastrous feud,
Must ever shock, like armed foes,
And this be true, till Time shall close
That Principles are rain’d in blood;
Not yet the wise of heart would cease
To hold his hope thro’ shame and guilt,
But with his hand against the hilt,
Would pace the troubled land, like Peace…
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From Audley Court
“Oh! who would fight and march and countermarch,
Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field,
And shovell’d up into some bloody trench
Where no one knows? but let me live my life.”
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