Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

Reconciliation

By Caroline Atherton Mason (1823–1890)

IF thou wert lying, cold and still and white,

In death’s embraces, O mine enemy!

I think that if I came and looked on thee

I should forgive; that something in the sight

Of thy still face would conquer me, by right

Of death’s sad impotence, and I should see

How pitiful a thing it is to be

At feud with aught that’s mortal.

So, to-night,

My soul, unfurling her white flag of peace,—

Forestalling that dread hour when we may meet,

The dead face and the living,—fain would cry

Across the years, “Oh, let our warfare cease!

Life is so short, and hatred is not sweet;

Let there be peace between us ere we die.”

1881.