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1775
NO Berserk thirst of blood had they, | |
| No battle-joy was theirs, who set | |
| Against the alien bayonet | |
| Their homespun breasts in that old day. | |
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| Their feet had trodden peaceful ways; | 5 |
| They loved not strife, they dreaded pain; | |
| They saw not, what to us is plain, | |
| That God would make man’s wrath his praise. | |
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| No seers were they, but simple men; | |
| Its vast results the future hid: | 10 |
| The meaning of the work they did | |
| Was strange and dark and doubtful then. | |
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| Swift as their summons came they left | |
| The plough mid-furrow standing still, | |
| The half-ground corn grist in the mill, | 15 |
| The spade in earth, the axe in cleft. | |
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| They went where duty seemed to call, | |
| They scarcely asked the reason why; | |
| They only knew they could but die, | |
| And death was not the worst of all! | 20 |
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| Of man for man the sacrifice, | |
| All that was theirs to give they gave. | |
| The flowers that blossomed from their grave | |
| Have sown themselves beneath all skies. | |
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| Their death-shot shook the feudal tower, | 25 |
| And shattered slavery’s chain as well; | |
| On the sky’s dome, as on a bell, | |
| Its echo struck the world’s great hour. | |
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| That fateful echo is not dumb: | |
| The nations listening to its sound | 30 |
| Wait, from a century’s vantage-ground, | |
| The holier triumphs yet to come,— | |
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| The bridal time of Law and Love, | |
| The gladness of the world’s release, | |
| When, war-sick, at the feet of Peace | 35 |
| The hawk shall nestle with the dove!— | |
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| The golden age of brotherhood | |
| Unknown to other rivalries | |
| Than of the mild humanities, | |
| And gracious interchange of good, | 40 |
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| When closer strand shall lean to strand, | |
| Till meet, beneath saluting flags, | |
| The eagle of our mountain-crags, | |
| The lion of our Motherland! | |
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