Explore "Peace Should Not Come" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Peace should not come along this foul, earth way. / Peace should not come, until we cleanse the path. / God waited for us; now in awful wrath / He pours the blood of men out day by day / To purify the highroad for her feet. / Why, what would Peace do, in a world where hearts / Are filled with thoughts like poison-pointed darts? / It were not meet, surely it were not meet / For Peace to come, and with her white robes hide / These industries of death-these guns and swords,- / These uniformed, hate-filled, destructive hordes,- / These hideous things, that are each nation's pride.
So long as men believe in armèd might / Let arms be brandished. Let not Peace be sought / Until the race-heart empties out all thought / Of blows and blood, as arguments for Right. / The world has never had enough of war, / Else war were not. Now let the monster stand, / Until he slays himself with his own hand; / Though no man knows what he is fighting for. / Then in the place where wicked cannons stood / Let Peace erect her shrine of Brotherhood.