Edward Bulwer Lytton: War and wrath and rapine cease, O Messenger of Peace!

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

British writers on peace and war

Edward Bulwer Lytton: Selections on peace and war

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Edward Bulwer Lytton
From Rienzi

Beauteous on the mountains – lo,
The feet of him glad tidings gladly bringing;
The flowers along his pathway grow,
And voices, heard aloft, to angel harps are singing:
And strife and slaughter cease
Before thy blessed way, Young Messenger of Peace!

O’er the mount, and through the moor,
Glide thy holy steps secure.
Day and night no fear thou knowest,
Lonely – but with God thou goest.
Where the Heathen rage the fiercest,
Through the armed throng thou piercest.
For thy coat of mail, bedight
In thy spotless robe of white.

For the sinful sword – thy hand
Bearing bright the silver wand:
Through the camp and through the court,
Through the bandit’s gloomy fort,
On the mission of the dove,
Speeds the minister of love;
By a word the wildest taming,
And the world to Christ reclaiming:
While, as once the waters trod
By the footsteps of thy God,
War, and wrath, and rapine cease,
Hush’d round thy charmed path, O Messenger of Peace!

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