Francis Saltus Saltus: Deem you one ambitious whose subjects bleed and perish on a field?

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

American writers on peace and against war

Francis Saltus Saltus: Selections on peace and war

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Francis Saltus Saltus
From An Answer

Call’st thou ambitious one who greeds to rule
A horde of savage soldiers armed in steel,
Who straggle to the fray as would a mule
Kicked at and battered by his master’s heel?
Deem’st thou ambitious he whose subjects bleed
And perish by his orders on a field
Where belching cannon, deaf to race or creed,
Vomit their terrors till the foemen yield?
Deem’st thou ambitious one in pomp arrayed
With slaves and cohorts at his erst command,
One who is wealthy-pursed and strong of blade,
One whose omnipotence awes sea and land?
If so, he lacketh reason, less his life
Be one of leniency; for tyrants’ sleep
Is sad and fatal, and a rancorous knife
Can sound the infamy of hearts most deep.