Arise then...women of this day! <br />Arise, all women who have hearts! <br />Whether your baptism be of water or of tears! <br />Say firmly: <br />"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies, <br />Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, <br />For caresses and applause. <br />Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn <br />All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. <br />We, the women of one country, <br />Will be too tender of those of another country <br />To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs." <br /> <br />From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with <br />Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm! <br />The sword of murder is not the balance of justice." <br />Blood does not wipe our dishonor, <br />Nor violence indicate possession. <br />As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil <br />At the summons of war, <br />Let women now leave all that may be left of home <br />For a great and earnest day of counsel. <br />Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. <br />Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means <br />Whereby the great human family can live in peace... <br />Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, <br />But of God - <br />In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask <br />That a general congress of women without limit of nationality, <br />May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient <br />And the earliest period consistent with its objects, <br />To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, <br />The amicable settlement of international questions, <br />The great and general interests of peace.<br /><br />Julia Ward Howe<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mother-s-day-proclamation/
