III
To scythe, to sceptre, pen and hod—
Yea, sodden laborers dumb;
To brains overplied, to feet that plod,
In solace of the Truce of God
The Calumet has come!
IV
Ah for the world ere Raleigh’s find
Never that knew this suasive balm
That helps when Gilead’s fails to heal,
Helps by an interserted charm.
Insinuous thou that through the nerve
Windest the soul, and so canst win
Some from repinings, some from sin,
The Church’s aim thou dost subserve.
The ruffled fag fordone with care
And brooding, God would ease this pain:
Him soothest thou and smoothest down
Till some content return again.
Even ruffians feel thy influence breed
Saint Martin’s summer in the mind,
They feel this last evangel plead,
As did the first, apart from creed,
Be peaceful, man—be kind!
V
Rejected once on higher plain,
O Love supreme, to come again
Can this be thine?
Again to come, and win us too
In likeness of a weed
That as a god didst vainly woo,
As man more vainly bleed?
VI
Forbear, my soul! and in thine Eastern chamber
Rehearse the dream that brings the long release:
Through jasmine sweet and talismanic amber
Inhaling Herba Santa in the passive Pipe of Peace.
OFF CAPE COLONNA
Aloof they crown the foreland lone,
From aloft they loftier rise—
Fair columns, in the aureole rolled
From sunned Greek seas and skies.
They wax, sublimed to fancy’s view,
A god-like group against the blue.
Over much like gods! Serene they saw
The wolf-waves board the deck,
And headlong hull of Falconer,
And many a deadlier wreck.