Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
IV. PeaceThe Arsenal at Springfield
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (18071882)T
Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;
But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing
Startles the villages with strange alarms.
When the death-angel touches those swift keys!
What loud lament and dismal miserere
Will mingle with their awful symphonies!
The cries of agony, the endless groan,
Which, through the ages that have gone before us,
In long reverberations reach our own.
Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman’s song;
And loud amid the universal clamor,
O’er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong.
Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din;
And Aztec priests upon their teocallis
Beat the wild war-drums made of serpents’ skin;
The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns;
The soldiers’ revels in the midst of pillage;
The wail of famine in beleaguered towns;
The rattling musketry, the clashing blade—
And ever and anon, in tones of thunder,
The diapason of the cannonade.
With such accursed instruments as these,
Thou drownest nature’s sweet and kindly voices,
And jarrest the celestial harmonies?
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There were no need of arsenals nor forts;
And every nation that should lift again
Its hand against a brother, on its forehead
Would wear forevermore the curse of Cain!
The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease;
And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations,
I hear once more the voice of Christ say, “Peace!”
The blast of war’s great organ shakes the skies;
But, beautiful as songs of the immortals,
The holy melodies of love arise.