The Death of Peace

NOW slowly sinks the day-long labouring Sun Behind the tranquil trees and old church-tower; And we who watch him know our day is done; For us too comes the evening—and the hour.

The sunbeams slanting through those ancient trees, The sunlit lichens burning on the byre, The lark descending, and the homing bees, Proclaim the sweet relief all things desire.

Golden the river brims beneath the west, And holy peace to all the world is given; The songless stockdove preens her ruddied breast; The blue smoke windeth like a prayer to heaven.

O old, old England, land of golden peace, Thy fields are spun with gossameres of gold, And golden garners gather thy increase, And plenty crowns thy loveliness untold.

By sunlight or by starlight ever thou Art excellent in beauty manifold; The still star victory ever gems thy brow; Age cannot age thee, ages make thee old.

And from the fading sunset comes a cry, And in the twilight voices wailing past, Like wild-swans calling, "When we rest we die, And woe to them that linger and are last";

The garden urns are black against the eve; The white moth flitters through the fragrant glooms; How beautiful the heav'ns!—But yet we grieve And wander restless from the lighted rooms.

For through the world to-night a murmur thrills As at some new-born prodigy of time— Peace dies like twilight bleeding on the hills, And Darkness creeps to hide the hateful crime.

The Death of Peace

Art thou no more, O Maiden Heaven-born, O Peace, bright Angel of the windless morn? Who comest down to bless our furrow'd fields, Or stand like Beauty smiling 'mid the corn:

Mistress of mirth and ease and summer dreams, Who lingerest among the woods and streams To help us heap the harvest 'neath the moon, And homeward laughing lead the lumb'ring teams:

Heav'n left to men the moulding of their fate: To live as wolves or pile the pillar'd State— Like boars and bears to grunt and growl in mire, Or dwell aloft, effulgent gods, elate.

The gentle Beings of the hearth and home; The lovely Dryads of her aislèd woods; The Angels that do dwell in solitudes Where she dwelleth; and joyous Spirits that roam To bless her bleating flocks and fruitful lands; Are gather'd there to weep, and kiss her dying hands.

"Look, look," they cry, "she is not dead, she breathes! And we have staunched the damnèd wound and deep, The cavern-carven wound. She doth but sleep And will awake. Bring wine, and new-wound wreaths Wherewith to crown awaking her dear head, And make her Queen again."—But no, for Peace was dead.