Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow (b. 1807-d. 1882)
The Arsenal At Springfield
1 This is
the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling,
2 Like a huge organ, rise the
burnished arms;
3 But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing
4 Startles the villages with
strange alarms.
5 Ah! what a sound
will rise, how wild and dreary,
6 When the death-angel touches
those swift keys!
7 What loud lament and dismal Miserere
8 Will mingle with their awful
symphonies!
9 I hear even now
the infinite fierce chorus,
10 The cries of agony, the endless groan,
11 Which, through the ages that have gone before us,
12 In long reverberations reach our own.
13 On helm and harness rings
the Saxon hammer,
14 Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman's
song,
15 And loud, amid the universal clamor,
16 O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar
gong.
17 I hear the Florentine, who
from his palace
18 Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful
din,
19 And Aztec priests upon their teocallis
20 Beat the wild war-drums made of serpent's
skin;
21 The tumult of each sacked
and burning village;
22 The shout that every prayer for mercy
drowns;
23 The soldiers' revels in the midst of pillage;
24 The wail of famine in beleaguered towns;
25 The bursting shell, the gateway
wrenched asunder,
26 The rattling musketry, the clashing
blade;
27 And ever and anon, in tones of thunder
28 The diapason of the cannonade.
29 Is it, O man, with such discordant
noises,
30 With such accursed instruments as these,
31 Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices,
32 And jarrest the celestial harmonies?
33 Were half the power, that
fills the world with terror,
34 Were half the wealth bestowed on camps
and courts,
35 Given to redeem the human mind from error,
36 There were no need of arsenals or forts:
37 The warrior's name would
be a name abhorred!
38 And every nation, that should lift again
39 Its hand against a brother, on its forehead
40 Would wear forevermore the curse of
Cain!
41 Down the dark future, through
long generations,
42 The echoing sounds grow fainter and
then cease;
43 And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations,
44 I hear once more the voice of Christ
say, "Peace!"
45 Peace! and no longer from
its brazen portals
46 The blast of War's great organ shakes
the skies!
47 But beautiful as songs of the immortals,
48 The holy melodies of love arise.
|
