“_How of War, O faint-heart, thou that grievest Over every gentle creature wounded, All soft eyes of pain and puzzled sorrow, All the lithe limbs marred, the wild wings broken? What black magic Makes thee brood on War, who dreadest these things?_ “_Is it but the haunting of the bugles, Floating memories of the war-time bugles Blowing over those far fields of childhood, Pleasant in the foolish ear of childhood, When the sword-hilt Seemed but made to shine and hold a jewel?_” _Then the inward Voice that gave the mandate,-- Bade me sing of battle,--bade me answer: Well I know the symbol of the sword-hilt, Know the Cross of sacrifice and service; See the heart’s-blood Burning where the child beheld the jewel._ _I have hated with the perfect hatred All the work of Hell in all the ages; Hated all the hate and all the horror; Yet the Vision of the Face of faces, God-in-Manhood, Shines through Hell, and I have seen the Vision._ _In this rubric, lo, the Past is lettered: Strike the red words out, we strike the glory. Leave the sacred color on the pages, Pages of the Past that teach the Future. On that scripture Yet shall young souls take the oath of service._ _God end War! but when brute War is ended, Yet there shall be many a noble soldier, Many a noble battle worth the winning, Many a hopeless battle worth the losing. Life is battle, Life is battle, even to the sunset._ _Soldiers of the Light shall strive forever, In the wards of pain, the ways of labor, In the stony deserts of the city, In the hives where greed has housed the helpless; Patient, valiant, Fighting with the powers of death and darkness._ _Make us mingle in that heavenly warfare; Call us through the throats of all brave bugles Blown on fields foregone by lips forgotten; Nerve us with the courage of lost comrades, Gird us, lead us, Thou, O Prince of Peace and God of Battles!_ THE THIRD DAY AT GETTYSBURG I Stand we awhile at gaze, in the Place of the Battle of Battles: High on the hill at the south, where over the fair-lying farmland Warren keeps watch in bronze, here under the sky of the summer Stand we awhile at gaze, far-scanning the roads and the ridges, Doubtful that such things were. Oh, sweet with the wafts of the wildrose, Sweet is the breath of the summer, the hushed spirit lapping and lulling! Man feels near to the kind red earth; as her nursling she draws him Close, ah close, to the fragrant warmth of her Indian bosom. Deep he drinks of life; and death is a dream in the distance.