The plan, in 1994, was to write a full-scale opera based on the real-life pacifist campaignings during the years preceding the first world war. Much research had been done into this movement, and its powerful reasons for existence. However, despite access to much of the correspondence and, of course, poetry on the subject, no librettist could be found, so the project was put on hold. These songs, or more correctly recitatives, which in some cases express the poets' utter disillusionment, are small re-animations, after 24 years, of some initial ideas for the opera.

This work is also available for mezzo-soprano and ensemble.