A Word For The Hour

The firmament breaks up. In black eclipse     Light after light goes out. One evil star,     Luridly glaring through the smoke of war,     As in the dream of the Apocalypse,     Drags others down. Let us not weakly weep     Nor rashly threaten. Give us grace to keep     Our faith and patience; wherefore should we leap     On one hand into fratricidal fight,     Or, on the other, yield eternal right,     Frame lies of law, and good and ill confound?     What fear we? Safe on freedoms vantage-ground     Our feet are planted: let us there remain     In unrevengeful calm, no means untried     Which truth can sanction, no just claim denied,     The sad spectators of a suicide!     They break the links of Union: shall we light     The fires of hell to weld anew the chain     On that red anvil where each blow is pain?     Draw we not even now a freer breath,     As from our shoulders falls a load of death     Loathsome as that the Tuscans victim bore     When keen with life to a dead horror bound?     Why take we up the accursed thing again?     Pity, forgive, but urge them back no more     Who, drunk with passion, flaunt disunions rag     With its vile reptile-blazon. Let us press     The golden cluster on our brave old flag     In closer union, and, if numbering less,     Brighter shall shine the stars which still remain