403. Fears in Solitude by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
b"ST Coleridge read by Classic Poetry Aloud: Giving voice to the poetry of the past.\\nwww.classicpoetryaloud.com\\n\\n--------------------------------------------\\n\\nfrom Fears in Solitude\\nby Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 - 1834)\\n\\nThankless too for peace, \\n(Peace long preserved by fleets and perilous seas) \\nSecure from actual warfare, we have loved \\nTo swell the war-whoop, passionate for war! \\nAlas! for ages ignorant of all \\nIts ghastlier workings, (famine or blue plague, \\nBattle, or siege, or flight through wintry snows,) \\nWe, this whole people, have been clamorous \\nFor war and bloodshed; animating sports, \\nThe which we pay for as a thing to talk of, \\nSpectators and not combatants! No guess \\nAnticipative of a wrong unfelt, \\nNo speculation on contingency, \\nHowever dim and vague, too vague and dim \\nTo yield a justifying cause; and forth, \\n(Stuffed out with big preamble, holy names, \\nAnd adjurations of the God in Heaven,) \\nWe send our mandates for the certain death \\nOf thousands and ten thousands! Boys and girls, \\nAnd women, that would groan to see a child \\nPull off an insect's leg, all read of war, \\nThe best amusement for our morning meal! \\nThe poor wretch, who has learnt his only prayers \\nFrom curses, who knows scarcely words enough \\nTo ask a blessing from his Heavenly Father, \\nBecomes a fluent phraseman, absolute \\nAnd technical in victories and defeats, \\nAnd all our dainty terms for fratricide; \\nTerms which we trundle smoothly o'er our tongues \\nLike mere abstractions, empty sounds to which \\nWe join no feeling and attach no form! \\nAs if the soldier died without a wound; \\nAs if the fibres of this godlike frame \\nWere gored without a pang; as if the wretch, \\nWho fell in battle, doing bloody deeds, \\nPassed off to Heaven, translated and not killed; \\nAs though he had no wife to pine for him, \\nNo God to judge him! Therefore, evil days \\nAre coming on us, O my countrymen! \\nAnd what if all-avenging Providence, \\nStrong and retributive, should make us know \\nThe meaning of our words, force us to feel \\nThe desolation and the agony \\nOf our fierce doings? \\n\\nFirst aired: 4 November 2007\\n\\nFor hundreds more poetry readings, visit the Classic Poetry Aloud index.\\n\\nReading \\xa9 Classic Poetry Aloud 2009"