Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WE MOTHERS KNOW, by JOHN DRINKWATER



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WE MOTHERS KNOW, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Peace,' they have said
Last Line: It shall be so.
Subject(s): Mothers; World War I; First World War


'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.





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