Disarmament

We have outgrown the helmet and cuirass,
The spear, the arrow, and the javelin.
These crude inventions of a cruder age,
When men killed men to show their love of God,
And he who slaughtered most was greatest king.
We have outgrown the need of war!
    Should men
Unite in this one thought, all war would end.

Disarm the world; and let all Nations meet
Like Men, not monsters, when disputes arise.
When crossed opinions tangle into snarls,
Let Courts untie them, and not armies cut.
When State discussions breed dissensions, let
Union and Arbitration supersede
The hell-created implements of War.
Disarm the world! and bid destructive thought
Slip like a serpent from the mortal mind
Down through the marshes of oblivion.    Soon
A race of gods shall rise!    Disarm!    Disarm!

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ella Wheeler Wilcox was an American author and poet, born on November 5, 1850, and died on October 30, 1919. She was known for her works expressing optimistic views and moral lessons. Her most famous book was 'Poems of Passion'. Her poem 'Solitude' contains the famous lines, 'Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone'. Over her career, Wilcox became popularly known as a 'people's poet'.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Uncontrolled

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

A Warning

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

A Picture.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Prayer

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

English

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The Paean Of Peace

With ever some wrong to be righting,
    With self ever seeking for place,
The world has been striving and fighting
    Since man was evolved out of space.
Bold history into dark regions
    His torchlight has fearlessly cast,
He shows us tribes warring in legions,
    In jungles of ages long passed.

Religion, forgetting her station,
    Forgetting her birthright from God,
Set nation to warring with nation
    And scattered dissension abroad.
Dear creeds have made men kill each other,
    Fair faith has bred hate and despair,
And brother has battled with brother
    Because of a difference in prayer.

But earth has grown wiser and kinder,
    For man is evolving a soul:
From wars of an age that was blinder,
    We rise to a peace-gird...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Voice

I dreamed a Voice, of one God-authorised,
Cried loudly thro' the world, 'Disarm!    Disarm!'
And there was consternation in the camps;
And men who strutted under braid and lace
Beat on their medalled breasts, and wailed, 'Undone!'
The word was echoed from a thousand hills,
And shop and mill, and factory and forge,
Where throve the awful industries of death,
Hushed into silence.    Scrawled upon the doors,
The passer read, 'Peace bids her children starve.'
But foolish women clasped their little sons
And wept for joy, not reasoning like men.

Again the Voice commanded:    'Now go forth
And build a world for Progress and for Peace.
This work has waited since the earth was shaped;
But men were fighting, and they could not toil.
The needs of life outnumber nee...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

War

I

There is no picturesqueness and no glory,
    No halo of romance, in war to-day.
    It is a hideous thing; Time would turn grey
With horror, were he not already hoary
At sight of this vile monster, foul and gory.
    Yet while sweet women perish as they pray,
    And new-born babes are slaughtered, who dare say
'Halt!' till Right pens its 'Finis' to the story!
There is no pathway, but the path through blood,
    Out of the horrors of this holocaust.
Hell has let loose its scalding crimson flood,
    And he who stops to argue now is lost.
Not brooms of creeds, not Pacifistic words
Can stem the tide, but swords - uplifted swords!

II

Yet, after Peace has turned the clean white page
    There shall be sorrow on the earth for years;
 ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Edict Of The Sex

Two thousand years had passed since Christ was born,
When suddenly there rose a mighty host
Of women, sweeping to a central goal
As many rivers sweep on to the sea.
They came from mountains, valleys, and from coasts,
And from all lands, all nations, and all ranks,
Speaking all languages, but thinking one.
And that one language - Peace.

    'Listen,' they said,
And straightway was there silence on the earth,
For men were dumb with wonder and surprise.
'Listen, O mighty masters of the world,
And hear the edict of all womankind:
Since Christ His new commandment gave to men,
LOVE ONE ANOTHER, full two thousand years
Have passed away, yet earth is red with blood.
The strong male rulers of the world proclaim
Their weakness, when we ask that war shall ceas...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Peace Should Not Come

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 armed 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 en...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Then And Now

A little time agone, a few brief years,
And there was peace within our beauteous borders;
Peace, and a prosperous people, and no fears
Of war and its disorders.
Pleasure was ruling goddess of our land; with her attendant Mirth
She led a jubilant, joy-seeking band about the riant earth.

Do you recall those laughing days, my Brothers,
And those long nights that trespassed on the dawn?
Those throngs of idle dancing maids and mothers
Who lilted on and on -
Card mad, wine flushed, bejewelled and half stripped,
Yet women whose sweet mouth had never sipped
From sin's black chalice - women good at heart
Who, in the winding maze of pleasure's mart,
Had lost the sun-kissed way to wholesome pleasures of an earlier day.

Oh!    You remember them!    You filled their...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox