'PEACE,' they have said. Though the sad profit of our pain We grieve till time is gone, We shall not learn to build again The bricks of Babylon -- Our sons are dead. Stilled are the guns. Good-will, they say, shall heal, shall bless The lands now, year by year -- But though the merciful possess The earth, they shall not hear Out little sons. They were our friends; Our thought, our breath, our blood we gave To make them so; They bought us peace, and in the grave Is all the peace they know, To make amends. Leaders and lords, Who in your pride decree that thus Or thus shall scores be paid, An age is building when with us Your reckoning shall be made, Who have no swords. We mothers know; By the world's hearths we sit and dream; Again we watch them die; They willed the peace that you blaspheme, And, though you still deny, It shall be so. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SPHINX by RALPH WALDO EMERSON SONNETS OF MANHOOD: 19. THE SOUTHERN PASSION by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) THE PALACE by CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY A GIRL'S SONGS: 2 by MARY CAROLYN DAVIES THISTLEDOWN: 4 by CORA RANDALL FABBRI |