Quotes
Quotes about War
It was the calm and silent night!
Seven hundred years and fifty-three
Had Rome been growing up to might,
And now was queen of land and sea.
No sound was heard of clashing wars,
Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain;
Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars
Held undisturbed their ancient reign
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago.
I trust in Nature for the stable laws
Of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant
And Autumn garner to the end of time.
I trust in God,--the right shall be the right
And other than the wrong, while he endures.
I trust in my own soul, that can perceive
The outward and the inward,--Nature's good
And God's.
He who did well in war just earns the right
To begin doing well in peace.
Come in the evening, or come in the morning;
Come when you're looked for, or come without warning.
'T is loving and serving
The Highest and Best!
'T is onwards! unswerving,
And that is true rest.
This was the truest warrior
That ever buckled sword;
This the most gifted poet
That ever breathed a word;
And never earth's philosopher
Traced with his golden pen
On the deathless page truths half so sage
As he wrote down for men.
Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified.
And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays.
Ez fer war, I call it murder,--
There you hev it plain an' flat;
I don't want to go no furder
Than my Testyment fer that.
.......
An' you've gut to git up airly
Ef you want to take in God.
This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable feetur.
We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage.
The very room, coz she was in,
Seemed warm from floor to ceilin'.
Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth
On war's red techstone rang true metal;
Who ventered life an' love an' youth
For the gret prize o' death in battle?
The wisest man could ask no more of Fate
Than to be simple, modest, manly, true,
Safe from the Many--honored by the Few;
To count as naught in World or Church or State;
But inwardly in secret to be great.
One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.
Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good steadily hastening towards immortality,
And the vast that is evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead.
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost;
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again and ever again, this soiled world.
Since what unnumbered year
Hast thou kept watch and ward
And o'er the buried Land of Fear
So grimly held thy guard?
Time's corrosive dewdrop eats
The giant warrior to a crust
Of earth in earth and rust in rust.
Not in rewards, but in the strength to strive,
The blessing lies.
In this dim world of clouding cares,
We rarely know, till wildered eyes
See white wings lessening up the skies,
The angels with us unawares.
The ages roll
Forward; and forward with them draw my soul
Into Time's infinite sea.
And to be glad or sad I care no more;
But to have done and to have been before
I cease to do and be!
Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight!
Make me a child again, just for to-night!
Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!
I am so weary of toil and of tears,--
Toil without recompense, tears all in vain!
Take them, and give me my childhood again!
These heroes are dead. They died for liberty--they died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tearful willows, the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or storm, each in the windowless palace of rest. Earth may run red with other wars--they are at peace. In the midst of battles, in the roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death.
