But, in the legends of our English tongue,
Cromwell and Rupert live alike to charm
An evening's fireside. Not thunder-peals
But battle-hymns and Zion blasts of song
Awake the Ironsides, to march again

To Fame's long drum-beat rolls. Rupert's wild locks,
Catching the sunbeams, still be-tangled float,
In English hearts, if not on English airs.
The spectral legions, in a phantom feast,
Still haunt the glorious field of Marston Moor.
Saxon and Norman now together sleep

In moldering abbeys, but on England's brow
Their memories mingle in imperial gems.
So, in the great Republic's coming years,
Will Blue and Gray, like kindred Gracchi, win
New glories for our shield;-will Lee and Grant,
Comrades upon the heights of fame, clasp hands
Across the bloody breach;-will North and South
Weave into one great laurel wreath for all
The leaves of each, and to the end of Time,
With hearts attun'd to human brotherhood,
Lift one perpetual pean to the flag!

XIX.

THE DREAM OF PEACE.

L

OVE is the symbol of the Deity

The gospel which the Galilean preach'd

Was one of peace-of peace to all mankind.

The prophet's dream was of a Golden Age, When wars should come no more, the olive's bloom End, for all time the iron argument,

The lion and the lamb to rest lie down

In peace together, and to lead them both,

A little child; when hatred's reign should cease;
When plowshares wrought of beaten swords should flash
O'er bloodless fields; the warrior's spear transform'd

Become, in labor's hand, a pruning-hook,

Which, stain'd no more by Discord's purple grapes
Should lend its chasten'd steel to gentler wines
Should yield a happier vintage, on the slopes
And in the laughing valleys, and divorc'd
From Chivalry's sublime but bloody deeds,
Smile on, in the unending truce of God.

O, mount, if o'er thee broods the eagle's wing,-
Upon thy crags, the dove, too, builds her nest.
Time's gentle surgery, on every hand,

Hath heal'd war's gaping wounds, and in our hearts

As on our hills, its scars have disappear'd.

Hast thou not seen the looms of spring at work,

Full many a year, on gory fields of war?

In green battalions, rise the banner'd corn?
The daisies mount the trenches without fear?

The moldering cannon, in war's fiery track,
Gather the violets, till its rust was hid?
The mystic weavers of the woods employ'd
On Nature's tapestries? The robins mate?
The locomotive trail its curling smoke,
On peaceful errands, meet for Mercy's car?
The thickening population slowly spread
Around vast centers and, o'er rambling roads,
Reach to the feeble hamlet's distant fires?

Hast thou not seen the soldier, home return'd,
Pallid of cheek-his uniform in rags-

The victim of gaunt hunger's ghastly clutch,

Or weak from unheal'd wounds?-his war-bronz'd face Grim with the silent story of defeat

But telling of a spirit unsubdu'd?

Aye, bent this hero of a thousand fields

This warrior-knight-this vanquish'd victor-bent,
But less the victim of his warfare's weight

Than of his load of laurels. Home once more
To find his home in ashes-gone its bloom
Of old-time beauty-gone its pillar'd pomp,
Its stately calm-fields over-run and gash'd
By war's grim plowshare-slaves set free-
An empire's treasure squander'd in a night,
And where the mansion tower'd, the garden bloom'd,
A waste of desolation. See him now,

Without a murmur, start life's work anew,

Amid the smoldering wreckage-catch the glow
Of hope's new sunrise, in his tear-dimm'd eyes,
Lit with the morning-weave once more
Around his blacken'd chimneys, an abode
For his dependent household, till it seem'd
That magic's dream was real-his the touch

()