Angela Morgan: Tell us the battlefields have lied, that men are still immaculate

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

American writers on peace and against war

Women writers on peace and war

Angela Morgan: Selections on war and peace

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Angela Morgan
From Swing Out, My Soul

Swing out, my soul, swing boldly out
Through straits of sorrow, gulfs of doubt;
Wash from my lips the cruel taste
Of years that reek with human blood;
My spirit strangles in the flood,
Swept on in war’s transcendent waste.
Spurn the black trough of unbelief,
Scale the high waves of mortal grief,
Swing grandly forth, my soul, to find
The salt blue ocean of God’s Mind.
Undo the dream that men have died,
Unfashion all the deeds of hate.
Tell us the battlefields have lied,
That men are still immaculate.
Swing out, swing up to that high place
Where the great dreams of God come true;
Where Love shall bring the nobler race,
And all things are created new!

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From It Is My Glory

Life is a harp with the strings gone!
My hands may reach, and reach eternally…
It is my glory that love, unanswered, hath thus extinguished me.
Love that were less, deserved no name of love;
Call it not weakness, ye who scoff and scorn;
And had ye love like mine, and had your sons and daughters, too, such love,
God would give beautiful people yet to the world.