Friend's House
This photo is the front cover of "War: The Offspring of Fear, written by Bertrand Russell. [War 1/18] © Friend's House, in London
Define: Phyrric
“A battle that wastes time is as deadly as a battle that wastes blood.”
– Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas;
inspired by Bertrand Russell’s War: The Offspring of Fear on World War I
And as a clash of blood-tempered iron
ensues between titans at large,
Death levels the hills and mountains
with stiffened corpses of the enemy.
The fight goes on, the soldiers dismay–
unheard of by the growling stomach
of the little white cat from the countryside
whose paws have turned a shade of pink.
The battlefield turns silent.
The feast has ended– the victor has won,
and in the distance, in pyrrhic solitude
a winner’s shout drowns out
the blood curdling screams
of man, woman, and children, dead below.
Aaron Asparin
A visit to the Friend's House was a delight-- as we walked into this aged, yet well preserved house, I could feel the sense of righteousness that many past and current Quakers upheld themselves to. There, the administrative team had selected quite a few documents for our review and analysis. This specific document was found at Friend's House, and the Quaker setting was truly an inspiration when reading the document-- an anti-war propaganda written by Bertrand Russell, a famous scholar-- itself. There, I imagined such a pitiful, war-damaged scene at which implored me to think about the damages caused to the innocent lives around the world-- both at home, and on the warzone. Even the little white cat, mentioned in stanza three is intended to be a reference of an innocent cat's fur, tainted with blood. A pacifistic nature really took over throughout the creation of this poem, as a consequence of being in a Quaker setting, and this poem's intent is to reject the concept of war.