So dull at making heavens, smart at hells! Have lips of girls grown harsh you woo the guns', With children's laughter paled by skeletons', Your worst your gods, your best your Ishmaels? Has evening lost all scent but battle smells? Your women brides of old or weak, else nuns, With love choked back and breeding witless sons? Shall life be discords wrung from broken bells? @3Too much of war in all of peace we own, All profit made to protest's undertone -- And all machines are oiled with human tears, If loom that children feed or clock of spheres.@1 No man, no host, can fashion hells alone; And where and when we will it heaven rears Its always open doors. Tin soldiers-toy Of trade no more, we yet shall live, full grown, A life so orchard rich, so free from fears, There's room for all except the wish: destroy. @3Yes, War's within each soul from hate alloy Which shall be burned away by common Joy.@1 | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...EPITHALAMION MADE AT LINCOLNES INNE by JOHN DONNE BROWNING AT ASOLO by ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON SHADOWS: 2 by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES SONNET: 78 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE POST MORTEM by GUSTAVO ADOLFO BECQUER |