Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
Spring at the Capital
By Elizabeth Akers Allen (1832–1911)T
Its tasselled plumes of silver-gray;
The chestnut pouts its great brown buds, impatient for the laggard May.
The hyacinths grow fair and tall;
And mellow sun and pleasant wind and odorous bees are over all.
How distant seems the war’s red flood!
How far remote the streaming wounds, the sickening scent of human blood!
This strife that rends the earth and skies;
No war-dreams vex the winter sleep of clover-heads and daisy-eyes.
Though navies sink or cities flame;
A snowdrop is a snowdrop still, despite the nation’s joy or shame.
She sends the pitying violets
To heal the outrage with their bloom, and cover it with soft regrets.
O tender-lipped anemones,
What do ye know of agony and death and blood-won victories?
Though near you rolls, with slow advance,
Clouding your shining leaves with dust, the anguish-laden ambulance.
The clash of martial music comes;
And now your startled stems are all a-tremble with the jar of drums.
Or whether trumpets shout or cease,
Still deep within your tranquil hearts the happy bees are murmuring “Peace!”
New comfort from your lips receives;
Sweet confidence and patient faith are hidden in your healing leaves.
That this dark night will soon be gone,
And that these battle-stains are but the blood-red trouble of the dawn,—
Than ever blessed us with its ray,—
A dawn beneath whose purer light all guilt and wrong shall fade away.
And, silencing the envious lands,
Stand in the searching light unshamed, with spotless robes, and clean, white hands.