THE PEACE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed
For honor lost and dear ones wasted,
But proud, to meet a people proud,
With eyes that tell o' triumph tasted!
Come, with han' gripping on the hilt,
An' step that proves ye Victory's daughter!
Longin' for you, our sperits wilt
Like shipwrecked men's on raf's for water.
"Come, while our country feels the lift
Of a great instinct shouting 'Forwards!'
An' knows that freedom ain't a gift
Thet tarries long in han's of cowards!
Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when
They kissed their cross with lips that quivered,
An' bring fair wages for brave men,
A nation saved, a race delivered!"
THESE are the noble lines of a noble poet, written in the sternest days of the great Civil War, when the writer, Lowell, was one among the millions of men who mourned the death in battle of kinsfolk dear to him. No man ever lived who hated an unjust war more than Lowell or who loved with more passionate fervor the peace of righteousness. Yet, like the other great poets of his day and country, like Holmes,