WITH every mighty nation now at war, While hideous cannon shatter works of art And break young men, whose disguised fair forms are Compelled to crouch in burrows, whence they start Only to run on death with terror's strength, Drab demons of a tract of stench and mud Where spiked iron ropes of any length Writhe like fierce snakes, and all about them thud Huge iron crocks charged with the pent-up rage Of many thousand weary aching slaves, Born into toil, shut like an artful cage Where life must pine on hope that never saves: Feeling and knowing this I long to stray Naked and wild by some Pacific bay. How all the patience of the soul is claimed Watching this loathsome quarrel wreck the world! Man's timid flesh is for his proud thought shamed Since it invents new engines to be hurled Against his easily unseated life Though that agree best with the tenderest ways Of wave and breeze, of leaf and child and wife. I pine for naked freedom in some place Where ocean whispers to a fragrant shore, Where trees hide oranges with orange flower, And birds such plumes shed that bride needs not more Dainty tiara for her long hair shower. Yet the hard tenant of this soft domain Still seeks worse ways to slay and to be slain. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MARIANNA ALCOFORANDO by SARA TEASDALE BLACK SAMSON OF BRANDYWINE by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR A DOUBLE STANDARD by FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER THE DEATH OF LYON by HENRY PETERSON CITY LYRICS by NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS THE LAST CAESAR, 1851-1870 by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH A PRAYER by WARREN K. BILLINGS SONGS OF MIRZA SCHAFFY, SELECTION by FRIEDRICH MARTIN VON BODENSTEDT |