The Arsenal at Springfield

5Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary,

6When the death-angel touches those swift keys

7What loud lament and dismal Miserere

8Will mingle with their awful symphonies

9I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus,

10The cries of agony, the endless groan,

11Which, through the ages that have gone before us,

12In long reverberations reach our own.

13On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer,

14Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman's song,

15And loud, amid the universal clamor,

16O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong.

17I hear the Florentine, who from his palace

18Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din,

19And Aztec priests upon their teocallis

20Beat the wild war-drums made of serpent's skin;

21The tumult of each sacked and burning village;

22The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns;

23The soldiers' revels in the midst of pillage;

24The wail of famine in beleaguered towns;

25The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder,

26The rattling musketry, the clashing blade;

27And ever and anon, in tones of thunder,

28The diapason of the cannonade.

29Is it, O man, with such discordant noises,

30With such accursed instruments as these,

31Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices,

32And jarrest the celestial harmonies?

33Were half the power, that fills the world with terror,

34Were half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts,

35Given to redeem the human mind from error,

36There were no need of arsenals or forts:

37The warrior's name would be a name abhorred!

38And every nation, that should lift again

39Its hand against a brother, on its forehead

40Would wear forevermore the curse of Cain!

41Down the dark future, through long generations,

42The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease;

43And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations,

44I hear once more the voice of Christ say, "Peace!"

45Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals

46The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies!

47But beautiful as songs of the immortals,

48The holy melodies of love arise.