PEACE PENDING.
Vae Victis! Nay, what Triumph rings
Exultant with that haughty word?
To grace its clarion, tempering brings
No music of a nobler chord?
Twice trophied, not what gentler strain?
Which, wiped no blot its honor caught,
Would, rank at heart, with flustered brain,
Still foul the cheer kind victory brought?
In the bugle’s drown the choral song,
What strange, deep notes ’twould auguring breathe?
Deck fresh the brow of fated Strong
With teemy bud of baser wreath?
For, lo, it was a gallant fight!
And, tho’ ravening Nature still stood up,
Pledged fierce, in her own drops, the bleeding Right,
Nay, bade her drain the chaliced Cup.
Tho’ unlineal stripped the lineal True,
Set low the faith, acclaimed the doubt,
What witness here but purging threw
Its passioned gage, to bear it out,
That worse than steel or murd’rous flare
Of gaping mouth, whose sudden gust
Flicks out the flame of little life, it were to bear
The yoke that galls with rude Unjust;
That they slay not half, who merely kill,
Nor holds within the execution of the sword
Yon cunning stab which numbs the will,
In its drowse lays on the bondsman’s cord;
That sweet blood spilt in noble cause,
Somehow, sustaining blends with Heaven’s dew,
So partner’d, for fresh come-up grows,
Past choke of False, the larger True;