Poems in War Time, vol 3, part 4 | Page 2

from our shoulders falls a load of death
Loathsome as that the
Tuscan's victim bore
When keen with life to a dead horror bound?

Why take we up the accursed thing again?
Pity, forgive, but urge
them back no more
Who, drunk with passion, flaunt disunion's rag

With its vile reptile-blazon. Let us press
The golden cluster on our
brave old flag

In closer union, and, if numbering less,
Brighter shall
shine the stars which still remain.
16th First mo., 1861.

"EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT."
LUTHER'S HYMN.
WE wait beneath the furnace-blast
The pangs
of transformation;
Not painlessly doth God recast
And mould anew
the nation.
Hot burns the fire
Where wrongs expire;
Nor spares
the hand
That from the land
Uproots the ancient evil.
The hand-breadth cloud the sages feared
Its bloody rain is dropping;

The poison plant the fathers spared
All else is overtopping.
East,
West, South, North,
It curses the earth;
All justice dies,
And fraud
and lies
Live only in its shadow.
What gives the wheat-field blades of steel?
What points the rebel
cannon?
What sets the roaring rabble's heel
On the old
star-spangled pennon?
What breaks the oath
Of the men o' the
South?
What whets the knife
For the Union's life?--
Hark to the
answer: Slavery!
Then waste no blows on lesser foes
In strife unworthy freemen.

God lifts to-day the veil, and shows
The features of the demon
O
North and South,
Its victims both,
Can ye not cry,
"Let slavery
die!"
And union find in freedom?
What though the cast-out spirit tear
The nation in his going?
We
who have shared the guilt must share
The pang of his o'erthrowing!

Whate'er the loss,
Whate'er the cross,
Shall they complain
Of
present pain

Who trust in God's hereafter?
For who that leans on His right arm
Was ever yet forsaken?
What
righteous cause can suffer harm
If He its part has taken?
Though
wild and loud,
And dark the cloud,
Behind its folds
His hand
upholds
The calm sky of to-morrow!
Above the maddening cry for blood,
Above the wild war-drumming,

Let Freedom's voice be heard, with good
The evil overcoming.


Give prayer and purse
To stay the Curse
Whose wrong we share,

Whose shame we bear,
Whose end shall gladden Heaven!
In vain the bells of war shall ring
Of triumphs and revenges,
While
still is spared the evil thing
That severs and estranges.
But blest the
ear
That yet shall hear
The jubilant bell
That rings the knell
Of
Slavery forever!
Then let the selfish lip be dumb,
And hushed the breath of sighing;

Before the joy of peace must come
The pains of purifying.
God
give us grace
Each in his place
To bear his lot,
And, murmuring
not,
Endure and wait and labor!
1861.
TO JOHN C. FREMONT.
On the 31st of August, 1861, General
Fremont, then in charge of the Western Department, issued a
proclamation which contained a clause, famous as the first
announcement of emancipation: "The property," it declared, "real and
personal, of all persons in the State of Missouri, who shall take up arms
against the United States, or who shall be directly proven to have taken
active part with their enemies in the field, is declared to be confiscated
to the public use; and their slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared
free men." Mr. Lincoln regarded the proclamation as premature and
countermanded it, after vainly endeavoring to persuade Fremont of his
own motion to revoke it.
THY error, Fremont, simply was to act
A brave man's part, without
the statesman's tact,
And, taking counsel but of common sense,
To
strike at cause as well as consequence.
Oh, never yet since Roland
wound his horn
At Roncesvalles, has a blast been blown
Far-heard,
wide-echoed, startling as thine own,
Heard from the van of freedom's
hope forlorn
It had been safer, doubtless, for the time,
To flatter
treason, and avoid offence
To that Dark Power whose underlying
crime
Heaves upward its perpetual turbulence.
But if thine be the
fate of all who break
The ground for truth's seed, or forerun their
years

Till lost in distance, or with stout hearts make
A lane for

freedom through the level spears,
Still take thou courage! God has
spoken through thee,
Irrevocable, the mighty words, Be free!
The
land shakes with them, and the slave's dull ear
Turns from the
rice-swamp stealthily to hear.
Who would recall them now must first
arrest
The winds that blow down from the free Northwest,
Ruffling
the Gulf; or like a scroll roll back
The Mississippi to its upper springs.

Such words fulfil their prophecy, and lack
But the full time to
harden into things.
1861.
THE WATCHERS.
BESIDE a stricken field I stood;
On the torn turf, on grass and wood,

Hung heavily the dew of blood.
Still in their fresh mounds lay the slain,
But all the air was quick with
pain
And gusty sighs and tearful rain.
Two angels, each with drooping head
And folded wings and noiseless
tread,
Watched by that valley of the dead.
The one, with forehead saintly bland
And lips of blessing, not
command,
Leaned, weeping, on her olive wand.
The other's brows were scarred and knit,
His restless eyes were
watch-fires lit,
His hands for battle-gauntlets fit.
"How long!"--I knew the voice of Peace,--
"Is there no respite? no
release?
When shall the hopeless quarrel cease?
"O Lord, how long!! One human soul
Is more than any parchment
scroll,
Or any flag thy winds unroll.
"What price was Ellsworth's,