XV

The hollow world through, that for ends of trade

And virtue, and God's better worshipping,

We henceforth should exalt the name of Peace,

And leave those rusty wars that eat the soul,—

      (Besides their clippings at our golden fleece.)

I, too, have loved peace, and from bole to bole

      Of immemorial, undeciduous trees,

Would write, as lovers use, upon a scroll

      The holy name of Peace, and set it high

Where none should pluck it down. On trees, I say,—

      Not upon gibbets!— With the greenery

Of dewy branches and the flowery May,

      Sweet mediation 'twixt the earth and sky,

Providing, for the shepherd's holiday!

      Not upon gibbets! though the vulture leaves

Some quiet to the bones he first picked bare.

      Not upon dungeons! though the wretch who grieves

And groans within, stirs not the outer air

      As much as little field-mice stir the sheaves.

Not upon chain-bolts! though the slave's despair

      Has dulled his helpless, miserable brain,

And left him blank beneath the freeman's whip,

      To sing and laugh out idiocies of pain.

Nor yet on starving homes! where many a lip

      Has sobbed itself asleep through curses vain!

I love no peace which is not fellowship,

      And which includes not mercy. I would have

Rather, the raking of the guns across

      The world, and shrieks against Heaven's architrave.

Rather, the struggle in the slippery fosse,

      Of dying men and horses, and the wave

Blood-bubbling.... Enough said!—By Christ's own cross,

And by the faint heart of my womanhood,

Such things are better than a Peace which sits

      Beside the hearth in self-commended mood,

And takes no thought how wind and rain by fits

      Are howling out of doors against the good

Of the poor wanderer. What! your peace admits

      Of outside anguish while it sits at home?

I loathe to take its name upon my tongue

      It is no peace. 'Tis treason, stiff with doom,

'Tis gagged despair, and inarticulate wrong,

      Annihilated Poland, stifled Rome,

Dazed Naples, Hungary fainting 'neath the thong,

      And Austria wearing a smooth olive-leaf

On her brute forehead, while her hoofs outpress

      The life from these Italian souls, in brief.

O Lord of Peace, who art Lord of Righteousness,

      Constrain the anguished worlds from sin and grief,

Pierce them with conscience, purge them with redress,

      And give us peace which is no counterfeit!