Love's War by John Donne

Till I have peace with thee, war other men, / And when I have peace, can I leave thee then? / All other wars are scrupulous; only thou / O free fair city, mayst thyself allow / To anyone. In Flanders, who can tell / Whether the master press, or men rebel? / Only we know, that which most idiots say, / They must bear blows which come to part the fray. / France in her lunatic giddiness did hate / Ever our men, yea, and our God, of late; / Yet she relies upon our angels well, / Which ne'er return, no more than they which fell. / Sick Ireland is with a strange war possest, / Like to an ague, now raging, now at rest, / Which time will cure; yet it must do her good / If she were purg'd, and her head-vein let blood; / And Midas joys our Spanish journeys give; / We touch all gold, but find no food to live; / And I should be in that hot parching clime / To dust and ashes turned before my time. / To mew me in a ship is to enthral / Me in a prison that were like to fall; / Or in a cloister, save that there men dwell / In a calm heaven, here in a swaying hell. / Long voyages are long consumptions, / And ships are carts for executions; / Yea, they are deaths; is 't not all one to fly / Into another world, as 'tis to die? / Here let me war; in these arms let me lie: / Here let me parley, batter, bleed, and die. / Thine arms imprison me, and my arms thee; / Thy heart thy ransom is; take mine for me. / Other men war, that they their rest may gain, / But we will rest that we may fight again. / Those wars th' ignorant, these th' experienced love; / There we are always under, here above. / There engines far off breed a just true fear; / Near thrusts, pikes, stabs, yea, bullets, hurt not here. / There lies are wrongs; here safe uprightly lie. / There men kill men; we'll make one by and by. / Thou nothing, I not half so much shall do / In those wars, as they may which from us two / Shall spring. Thousands we see which travel not / To war, but stay, swords, arms, and shot / To make at home; and shall not I do then / More glorious service, staying to make men?