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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
British writers on peace and war
Joanna Baillie: And shall we think of war?
Joanna Baillie: Do children return from rude jarring war?
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Joanna Baillie
From Ethwald: A Tragedy
The land is full of blood: her savage birds
O’er human carcasses do scream and batten:
The silent hamlet smokes not; in the field
The aged grandsire turns the joyless soil :
Dark spirits are abroad, and gentle worth
Within the narrow house of death is laid,
An early tenant.
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I’m sick of worldly broils, and fain would rest
With those who war no more.
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Did not that seeming cloud of death obscure
To your keen forecast eye tumultuous scenes
Of war and strife, and conquest yet to come.
Bought with your people’s blood? but now, my Ethwald,
Your chasten’d mind, so rich in good resolves.
Hath stretcli’d before it, future prospect fair,
Such as a God might please.
…
O see before thee
Thy native land, freed from the ills of war
And hard oppressive power, a land of peace!
Where yellow fields unspoil’d, and pastures green.
Mottled with herds and flocks, who crop secure
Their native herbage, nor have ever known
A stranger’s stall, smile gladly.
See, thro’ its tufted alleys to heaven’s roof
The curling smoke of quiet dwellings rise;
Whose humble masters, with forgotten spear
Hung on the webbed wail, and cheerful face
la harvest fields embrown’d, do gaily talk
Over their ev’ning meal…
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