Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/227

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,