Thy Brother's Blood Crieth
Harvest and vintage become images of wartime slaughter as cries rise from ruined homes and blood-soaked earth. The speaker laments a mourning mother figure, warns a powerful king by invoking fallen Babylon, and calls on humanity to leave vengeance to God and put away the sword.
By Christina Georgina Rossetti · Genre: War Poetry, Religious Poetry, Anti-War Literature · 456 words
First lines
The German-French Campaign, 1870-1871. These two pieces, written during the suspense of a great nation's agony, aim at expressing human sympathy, not political bias.
All her corn-fields rippled in the sunshine, / All her lovely vines, sweets-laden, bowed; / Yet some weeks to harvest and to vintage: / When, as one man's hand, a cloud / Rose and spread, and, blackening, burst asunder / In rain and fire and thunder.
Genres
- War Poetry — The campaign note frames verses depicting bloodshed, blackened homesteads, and mourning through harvest and vintage imagery.
- Religious Poetry — The victims' cries reach Heaven, Babylon supplies a warning to a king, and the closing appeal reserves vengeance for God.
- Anti-War Literature — The poem expresses sympathy for wartime suffering and concludes with a command to put away the sword.
Tags
war · civilian suffering · mourning · divine judgment · vengeance · harvest imagery
What this Textopian page supports
Thy Brother's Blood Crieth is listed on Textopian as a poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Christina Georgina Rossetti
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: War Poetry, Religious Poetry, Anti-War Literature
- Length: 456 words
- Structure: 1 section, 7 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
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