Of what avail, if thus we err, Our gifts of frankincense and myrrh, Prayers, mummery, and holy water, To cleanse the air from smell of slaughter, And psalms, and organ chants sonorous, With all our damning guilt before us? Has sharp remorse no power to move The stronger agony of love In breasts whose suffering finds at last The madness of the conflict past, Which, having ’scaped the shock of steel In battle’s fearful expiation, Beside the slain at last shall feel The glow of reconciliation, Over the tombs which now conceal The flower and glory of the nation? Come where the slain, all pale and cold, Sleep ’neath the all-concealing mold, While evening’s melancholy breeze With sad voice in the forest lingers, Thrumming the spray of whispering trees Like chords beneath a harper’s fingers, In fitful, sobbing, plaintive tone, Thrilling the pained air with its moan, And wailing down the leafless aisles with low and dying groan. Let pity, warm as Love’s caress, Strew violets in tenderness Above our kinsmen dead; And myrtles clustering o’er their tomb, Enfold in robes of purple bloom Their consecrated bed; And let the fresh-winged morning air Now waft to heaven the nation’s prayer To spare the avenging rod, And weld the golden chain of love Between all human hearts above And all beneath the sod. No more; no more; for overhead The Christmas star renews its brightness; Its beams revivify the dead In garments of celestial whiteness; By our sad fate, the phantoms say, By all the griefs that wring the living, Cast each embittered thought away, And join the people by forgiving. Armies of slaughtered men have fed The Moloch fires of expiation, Whose blood, like Abel’s madly shed, Joins in the fervent invocation. Plead ye for peace? Expect it where Justice is equal as the air And vote and count are just and fair, Nor seek the fruitful olive tree, On the volcano’s breast of snow, While the flame-waved Vesuvian sea Consumes the sapless earth below. Redeemed from violence and fraud, All hail the resurrected nation; The Rights of Man shall be its broad, Deep and immovable foundation, And the Philanthropy of God The corner-stone of Restoration. OPHELIA Gaily she struck the sweet guitar, The maiden fair as a beautiful star; And her soft voice fell on charmed ears Like a seraph’s song from the upper spheres Joyous and blithe is the song she sings, As the morning lark on his heavenward wings; Little the list’ners dream that rest Never again shall dwell in her breast; Little they dream, while that strain she is waking That her heart with a secret grief is breaking.