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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

British writers on peace and war

American writers on peace and against war

Richard Le Gallienne: Is this to be strong, ye nations, your vulgar battles to fight?

Richard Le Gallienne: A nation is merely a big fool with an army

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Richard Le Gallienne

The Illusion of War (1915)

War

I abhor,

And yet how sweet

The sound along the marching street

Of drum and fife, and I forget

Wet eyes of widows, and forget

Broken old mothers, and the whole

Dark butchery without a soul.

Without a soul – save this bright drink

Of heady music, sweet as hell;

And even my peace-abiding feet

Go marching with the marching street,

For yonder, yonder goes the fife,

And what care I for human life!

The tears fill my astonished eyes

And my full heart is like to break,

And yet ’tis all embannered lies,

A dream those little drummers make.

O it is wickedness to clothe

Yon hideous grinning thing that stalks

Hidden in music, like a queen

That in a garden of glory walks,

Till good men love the thing they loathe.

Art, thou hast many infamies,

But not an infamy like this;

O snap the fife and still the drum,

And show the monster as she is.