Nor is it necessary for four hundred years to pass away for that day to come. We live in a period in which a year often suffices to do the work of a century.
Suppose that the people of Europe, instead of mistrusting each other, entertaining jealousy of each other, hating each other, become fast friends; suppose they say that before they are French or English or German they are men, and that if nations form countries, human kind forms a family. Suppose that the enormous sums spent in maintaining armies should be spent in acts of mutual confidence. Suppose that the millions that are lavished on hatred, were bestowed on love, given to peace instead of war, given to labor, to intelligence, to industry, to commerce, to navigation, to agriculture, to science, to art.
If this enormous sum were expended in this manner, know you what would happen? The face of the world would be changed. Isthmuses would be cut through. Railroads would cover the continents; the merchant navy of the globe would be increased a hundredfold. There would be nowhere barren plains nor moors nor marshes. Cities would be found where now there are only deserts. Asia would be rescued to civilization; Africa would be rescued to man; abundance would gush forth on every side, from every vein of the earth at the touch of man, like the living stream from the rock beneath the rod of Moses.
III. Soldier, Rest [16]
Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking;
Dream of battled fields no more,
Days of danger, nights of waking.
In our isle's enchanted hall,
Hands unseen thy couch are strewing,
Fairy strains of music fall,
Every sense in slumber dewing.
Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Dream of fighting fields no more;
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil nor night of waking.
No rude sound shall reach thine ear,
Armor's clang, or war steed champing,
Trump nor pibroch summon here
Mustering clan or squadron tramping.
Yet the lark's shrill fife may come
At the daybreak from the fallow,
And the bittern sound his drum,
Booming from the sedgy shallow.
Ruder sounds shall none be near,
Guards nor warders challenge here,
Here's no war steed's neigh and champing,
Shouting clans, or squadrons stamping.
IV. The Soldier's Dream [17]
Our bugles sang truce, for the night cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.
When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,
By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain;
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.
Methought from the battle field's dreadful array,
Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track;
'Twas autumn, and sunshine arose on the way
To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.