Here the warm sunshine fills
Like wine of gods the deepening, cup-shaped dells,
Embossed with marvelous flowers; the happy rills
Roam through the autumnal fields whose rich increase
Of gathered grain smiles under heavens of peace;
While many a bird-song swells
From glades of neighboring woodlands, cool and fair, —
Content and Peace are here .

T HERE the wild Battle's wrath
Thunders from castled height to storied plain,
Plows with red lightning-bolts its terrible path,
And sows the abhorrent seeds of blood and death,
Blown far on Desolation's tameless breath, —
While for autumnal grain
Time reaps the harvest of a bleak despair, —
God's curse consumes them there .

Here jovial children play
Beneath the latest vine-leaves; innocent kings,
And blissful queens, — on them the matron Day,
Like a sweet mother, drops her kisses light;
The very clouds some secret joy makes bright, —
And round us clings and clings
With Ariel arms, the season's influence rare, —
Heaven's heart beats near us here .

T HERE Love bemoans its lost,
Countless as seaside sands; all joys of life
Rest locked and stirless in the blood-red frost;
Ye drums roll out, shrill clarions peal your parts!
Ye cannot drown the wail of broken hearts,
Nor still that spiritual strife
Which thrills through Victory's voice its death-notes drear, —
Dear Christ, soothe, save them there!