Lay him low, lay him low,
In the clover or the snow!
he? he cannot know; hin-low!
Geo. Hoke
WAR FOR THE SAKE OF PEACE.
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.
What would not, Peace! the patriot bear for
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. E'en the good patient man whom reason rules, Roused by bold insult and injurious rage, With sharp and sudden check the astonished sons Of violence confounds; firm as his cause His bolder heart; in awful justice clad; 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.
Then ardent rise! O, great in vengeance rise! O'erturn the proud, teach rapine to restore; And, as you ride sublimely round the world, Make every vessel stoop, make every state At once their welfare and their duty know.
In darkness, and pure and spangling snow Gleams faintly through the gloom that gathers round!
Hark to that roar, whose swift and deafening peals
In countless echoes through the mountains ring, Startling pale midnight on her starry throne! Now swells the intermingling din; the jar Frequent and frightful of the bursting bomb; The falling beam, the shriek, the groan, the shout,
Inebriate with rage; loud, and more loud The ceaseless clangor, and the rush of men The discord grows; till pale death shuts the scene,
And o'er the conqueror and the conquered draws His cold and bloody shroud. - Of all the men Whom day's departing beam saw blooming there, In proud and vigorous health; of all the hearts That beat with anxious life at sunset there, How few survive, how few are beating now! All is deep silence, like the fearful calm That slumbers in the storm's portentous pause; Save when the frantic wail of widowed love
Comes shuddering on the blast, or the faint moan
With which some soul bursts from the frame of clay
Wrapt round its struggling powers.
The gray morn Dawns on the mournful scene; the sulphurous smoke
Before the icy wind slow rolls away,
And the bright beams of frosty morning dance Along the spangling snow. There tracks of blood Even to the forest's depth, and scattered arms, And lifeless warriors, whose hard lineaments Death's self could change not, mark the dreadful path
Of the outsallying victors; far behind, Black ashes note where their proud city stood. Within yon forest is a gloomy glen, Each tree which guards its darkness from the day
AH! whence yon glare, That fires the arch of heaven? — that dark-red smoke Blotting the silver moon? The stars are quenched Waves o'er a warrior's tomb.
War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, The lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade, And to those royal murderers whose mean thrones Are bought by crimes of treachery and gore, The bread they eat, the staff on which they lean. Guards, garbed in blood-red livery, surround Their palaces, participate the crimes
That force defends, and from a nation's rage Secure the crown, which all the curses reach That famine, frenzy, woe, and penury breathe. These are the hired bravos who defend
FROM "PARADISE LOST," BOOK VI.
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.
The apostate in his sun-bright chariot sat, Idol of majesty divine, enclosed
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.
And inextinguishable rage. All heaven Resounded; and had earth been then, all earth Had to her centre shook.
-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),
Light as the lightning glimpse they ran, they 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, When coming towards them so dread they saw Be sure, and terror, seized the rebel host, The bottom of the mountains upward turned, and on their heads
Main promontories flung, which in the air Came shadowing, and oppressed whole legions arned;
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
The archangel trumpet; through the vast of To this uproar; horrid confusion heaped
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
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 empyrean shook throughout.
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