The helmet now a hive for bees becomes,

And hilts of swords may serve as spiders' looms;

  Sharp pikes may make 

  Teeth for a rake; 

And the keen blade, th' arch enemy of life 

Shall be degraded to a pruning knife. 

  The rustic spade 

  Which first was made 

For honest agriculture shall retake 

Its primitive employment, and forsake 

  The rampires steep 

  And trenches deep. 

Tame conies in our brazen guns shall breed, 

Or gentle doves their young ones there shall feed. 

  In musket barrels 

  Mice shall raise quarrels 

For their quarters. The ventriloquious drum, 

Like lawyers in vacations, shall be dumb. 

  Now all recruits, 

  But those of fruits, 

Shall be forgot; and th' unarmed soldier 

Shall only boast of what he did whilere, 

  In chimneys' ends 

  Among his friends.


Ralph Knevet
1600-1671