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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
British writers on peace and war
Women writers on peace and war
Isabella Banks: Absolve our souls from blood shed in our country’s cause
Isabella Banks: The bugle of war, the bugle of peace
Isabella Banks: Lay down weapons, war should cease
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Isabella Banks (Mrs. G. Linnaeus Banks)
From The Mystery of Life’s Battle
I hear neighing, I hear braying from the trumpet’s clamorous throat;
See the warriors’ dread arraying, hear the cannon’s thund’rous note;
See the flashing, hear the clashing of the swords that meet and smite;
Hear the crimson torrent splashing through the darkness and the light.
I hear moaning, I hear groaning, I hear hoof-beats on the plain
Chargers trampling (no one owning) on the living and the slain.
I hear wailing unavailing o’er the dying and the dead,
See the widow’s cold lips paling as she lifts a gory head.
I see traces on all faces of a battle lost and won;
Ask, “Whom victory disgraces? What the gain when all is done?”
I hear “Glory, glory, glory!” for an answer ‘mid the din,
That old and worn-out story as if murder were not sin!
And I ponder, as I wander o’er the battle-field of Life,
On all the good we squander in its everlasting strife;
All the sadness and the madness of the universal creed,
That, for one man’s gain or gladness, it is needful many bleed.
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