Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic]

PEACE AN WAR

UNIV

[ocr errors]

ICH

[ocr errors]

Osay

that

The Star-spangled banner.

[ocr errors]

you see by the dawn's early light

so proudly we haild at the

Cat so

Cr's last of
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the clouds of:

we watched were so falloutly streaming?

O'er the ramparts
And the rocket's red

glave - the bomb.

in air

Game proof through the night that bursting will there?

[ocr errors]

шале

Jaz, dass that star. op angled banner get w
Over the law of the free < the home of the brave? _

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

POEMS OF PEACE AND WAR.

WAR FOR THE SAKE OF PEACE.

FROM "BRITANNIA."

WAR.

O FIRST of human blessings, and supreme!
Fair Peace! how lovely, how delightful thou!
By whose wide tie the kindred sons of men
Like brothers live, in amity combined
And unsuspicious faith; while honest toil
Gives every joy, and to those joys a right
Which idle, barbarous rapine but usurps.
Pure is thy reign; when, unaccursed by blood,
Naught, save the sweetness of indulgent showers,
Trickling, distills into the vernant glebe;
Instead of mangled carcasses, sad seen,
When the blithe sheaves lie scattered o'er the
field;

When only shining shares, the crooked knife,
And hooks imprint the vegetable wound;
When the land blushes with the rose alone,
The falling fruitage, and the bleeding vine.
O Peace! thou source and soul of social life;
Beneath whose calm inspiring influence
Science his views enlarges, Art refines,
And swelling commerce opens all her ports;
Blessed be the man divine who gives us thee!
Who bids the trumpet hush his horrid clang,
Nor blow the giddy nations into rage;
Who sheathes the murderous blade; the deadly
gun

Into the well-piled armory returns ;
And, every vigor from the work of death
To grateful industry converting, makes
The country flourish and the city smile.
Unviolated, him the virgin sings,
And him the smiling mother to her train.
Of him the shepherd in the peaceful dale
Chants; and, the treasures of his labor sure,
The husbandman of him, as at the plow
Or team he toils. With him the sailor soothes,
Beneath the trembling moon, the midnight wave;
And the full city, warm, from street to street
And shop to shop responsive, rings of him.
Nor joys one land alone; his praise extends
Far as the sun rolls the diffusive day;
Far as the breeze can bear the gifts of peace,
Till all the happy nations catch the song.

What would not, Peace! the patriot bear for thee?

What painful patience? What incessant care ?
What mixed anxiety? What sleepless toil?
E'en from the rash protected, what reproach?
For he thy value knows; thy friendship he
To human nature: but the better thou,
The richer of delight, sometimes the more
Inevitable WAR, when ruffian force
Awakes the fury of an injured state.
Roused by bold insult and injurious rage,
E'en the good patient man whom reason rules,
With sharp and sudden check the astonished sons
His bolder heart; in awful justice clad ;
Of violence confounds; firm as his cause
His eyes effulging a peculiar fire :
And, as he charges through the prostrate war,
His keen arm teaches faithless men no more
To dare the sacred vengeance of the just.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Arm, arm, you heavens, against these perjured
kings!

A widow cries; be husband to me, heavens !
Let not the hours of this ungodly day
Wear out the day in peace; but, ere sunset,
Set armed discord 'twixt these perjured kings!
Hear me, O, hear me !

AUSTRIA.
Lady Constance, peace.
CONSTANCE. War! war! no peace! peace is to

me a war.

MARTIAL ELEGY.

SHAKESPEARE.

BATTLE OF THE ANGELS.

FROM "PARADISE LOST."

THE ARRAY.

Now went forth the morn,
Such as in highest heaven, arrayed in gold
Empyreal; from before her vanished night,
Shot through with orient beams; when all the
plain

Covered with thick embattled squadrons bright,
Chariots, and flaming arms, and fiery steeds,
Reflecting blaze on blaze, first met his view.
Clouds began

How glorious fall the valiant, sword in hand, To darken all the hill, and smoke to roll

In front of battle for their native land!
But O, what ills await the wretch that yields,
A recreant outcast from his country's fields!
The monarch whom he loves shall quit her home,
An aged father at his side shall roam;
His little ones shall weeping with him go,
And a young wife participate his woe;
While, scorned and scowled upon by every face,
They pine for food, and beg from place to place.

In dusky wreaths, reluctant flames, the sign
Of wrath awaked; nor with less dread the loud
Ethereal trumpet from on high 'gan blow;
At which command the powers militant
That stood for heaven, in mighty quadrate joined
Of union irresistible, moved on

In silence their bright legions, to the sound Of instrumental harmony, that breathed Heroic ardor to adventurous deeds Under their godlike leaders, in the cause Of God and his Messiah. On they move Indissolubly firm; nor obvious hill, Nor straitening vale, nor wood, nor stream, divides Shall blind him, wandering in the vale of years, Their perfect ranks; for high above the ground

Stain of his breed! dishonoring manhood's form,

All ills shall cleave to him: - Affliction's storm

[ocr errors]

Till, lost to all but ignominious fears,

He shall not blush to leave a recreant's name,
And children, like himself, inured to shame.

But we will combat for our fathers' land,
And we will drain the life-blood where we stand
To save our children :- fight ye side by side,
And serried close, ye men of youthful pride,
Disdaining fear, and deeming light the cost
Of life itself in glorious battle lost.

Leave not our sires to stem the unequal fight, Whose limbs are nerved no more with buoyant might;

Nor, lagging backward, let the younger breast
Permit the man of age (a sight unblessed)
To welter in the combat's foremost thrust,
His hoary head disheveled in the dust,
And venerable bosom bleeding bare.

Their march was, and the passive air upbore
Their nimble tread. As when the total kind

Of birds, in orderly array on wing,

Came summoned over Eden to receive
Their names of thee; so over many a tract
Of heaven they marched, and many a province
wide,

Tenfold the length of this terrene; at last,
Far in the horizon to the north appeared
From skirt to skirt a fiery region, stretched
In battailous aspect, and nearer view
Bristled with upright beams innumerable

Of rigid spears, and helmets thronged, and shields
Various, with boastful argument portrayed,
The banded powers of Satan hasting on
With furious expedition; for they weened
That selfsame day, by fight, or by surprise,
To win the mount of God, and on his throne
To set the envier of his state, the proud
Aspirer; but their thoughts proved fond and vain
In the midway: though strange to us it seemed

But youth's fair form, though fall'n, is ever At first, that angel should with angel war,

fair,

And beautiful in death the boy appears,
The hero boy, that dies in blooming years :
In man's regret he lives, and woman's tears;
More sacred than in life, and lovelier far
For having perished in the front of war.

From the Greek of TYRTÆUS,

by THOMAS CAMPBELL.

And in fierce hosting meet, who wont to meet
So oft in festivals of joy and love
Unanimous, as sons of one great Sire,
Hymning the Eternal Father. But the shout
Of battle now began, and rushing sound
Of onset ended soon each milder thought.
High in the midst, exalted as a god,

The apostate in his sun-bright chariot sat, Idol of majesty divine, inclosed

With flaming cherubim, and golden shields;
Then lighted from his gorgeous throne, for now
"Twixt host and host but narrow space was left,
A dreadful interval, and front to front
Presented stood in terrible array

Of hideous length: before the cloudy van,
On the rough edge of battle ere it joined,
Satan, with vast and haughty strides advanced,
Came towering, armed in adamant and gold.

THE CONFLICT.

Michaël bid sound

Their armor helped their harm, crushed in and bruised

Into their substance pent, which wrought them pain

Implacable, and many a dolorous groan;
Long struggling underneath, ere they could wind
Out of such prison, though spirits of purest light,
Purest at first, now gross by sinning grown.
The rest, in imitation, to like arms
Betook them, and the neighboring hills uptore:
So hills amid the air encountered hills,
Hurled to and fro with jaculation dire,
That underground they fought in dismal shade;
Infernal noise! war seemed a civil game
To this uproar; horrid confusion heaped

The archangel trumpet; through the vast of Upon confusion rose.

heaven

It sounded, and the faithful armies rung
Hosanna to the Highest: nor stood at gaze
The adverse legions, nor less hideous joined
The horrid shock. Now storming fury rose,
And clamor, such as heard in heaven till now
Was never; arms on armor clashing brayed
Horrible discord, and the madding wheels
Of brazen chariots raged; dire was the noise
Of conflict; overhead the dismal hiss
Of fiery darts in flaming volleys flew,
And flying vaulted either host with fire.
So under fiery cope together rushed
Both battles main, with ruinous assault
And inextinguishable rage. All heaven
Resounded; and had earth been then, all earth
Had to her center shook. ...

[ocr errors]

.. Deeds of eternal fame Were done, but infinite: for wide was spread That war, and various: sometimes on firm ground A standing fight, then, soaring on main wing, Tormented all the air; all air seemed then Conflicting fire.

Forthwith (behold the excellence, the power
Which God hath in his mighty angels placed !)
Their arms away they threw, and to the hills
(For earth hath this variety from heaven,

Of pleasure situate in hill and dale),

THE VICTOR.

So spake the Son, and into terror changed
His countenance too severe to be beheld,
And full of wrath bent on his enemies.
At once the four spread out their starry wings
With dreadful shade contiguous, and the orbs
Of his fierce chariot rolled, as with the sound
Of torrent floods, or of a numerous host.
He on his impious foes right onward drove,
Gloomy as night under his burning wheels
The steadfast empyréan shook throughout,
All but the throne itself of God. Full soon
Among them he arrived; in his right hand
Grasping ten thousand thunders, which he sent
Before him, such as in their souls infixed
Plagues they, astonished, all resistance lost,
All courage; down their idol weapons dropt;
O'er shields, and helms, and helmed heads he
rode

:

Of thrones and mighty seraphim prostrate,
That wished the mountains now might be again
Thrown on them, as a shelter from his ire.
Nor less on either side tempestuous fell
His arrows, from the fourfold-visaged four
Distinct with eyes, and from the living wheels
Distinct alike with multitude of eyes;

One spirit in them ruled; and every eye

Light as the lightning glimpse they ran, they Glared lightning, and shot forth pernicious fire

flew,

From their foundations loosening to and fro,
They plucked the seated hills, with all their load,
Rocks, waters, woods, and by the shaggy tops
Uplifting bore them in their hands: amaze,
Be sure, and terror, seized the rebel host,
When coming towards them so dread they saw
The bottom of the mountains upward turned,
.. and on their heads
Main promontories flung, which in the air
Came shadowing, and oppressed whole legions
armed;

Among the accursed, that withered all their

strength,

And of their wonted vigor left them drained,
Exhausted, spiritless, afflicted, fallen.

Yet half his strength he put not forth, but checked

His thunder in mid volley; for he meant
Not to destroy, but root them out of heaven:
The overthrown he raised, and as a herd
Of goats or timorous flock together thronged,
Drove them before him thunderstruck, pursued
With terrors and with furies, to the bounds

« PreviousContinue »