Peace, from "Picture Poesies"

North's image of a woman and girl tending to a lamb beneath a flowering tree first appeared in "Wayside Posies:Original Poems of the Country Life," a book edited by Robert Williams Buchanan, illustrated by G. J. Pinwell, J. W. North, and Frederick Walker, engraved by the Brothers Dalziel, and published by Routledge as a Fine Art gift book. In 1874, the publisher reissued the print in "Picture Poesies." The related poem, whose author is not identified, celebrates the peace that England currently enjoys, and prays that it may continue.

Peace

War thunders out of other lands,
And men are slain by human hands,
And mothers' moans and widows' tears
Sadden the sweetness of the years.

But here in Engalnd blooms the palm,
Is breathed the prayer and sung the psalm;
Though, sleepless on his iron height,
The Lion's eye is rolled in light.

The stream unreddened sweeps along;
The poet hums a quiet song;
Yet, from the anvil's piercing tongue
The war-cry of the sword is rung.

In English meadows sleeps the lamb,
Meek symbol of the pure 'I AM';
But dark in yon celestial sky
A taloned Fate is sailing by.

But keep, O England, peaceful rule;
Far from thy shores be knave and fool;
Lest the slow anger of thy sons
Loose the swift lightning of their guns.

And pour, O God, around this isle
The living splendour of Thy smile,
That all our bays and peaks may be
Havens and thrones of Liberty!