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“If now,” the Senators, closing, say,
“Aught else remain, speak out, we pray”
Hereat he paused; his better heart
Strove strongly then; prompted a worthier part
Than coldly to endure his doom.
Speak out? Ay, speak, and for the brave,
Who else no voice or proxy have;
Frankly their spokesman here become,
And the flushed North from her own victory save.
That inspiration overrode–
Hardly it quelled the galling load
Of personal ill. The inner feud
He, self-contained, a while withstood;
They waiting. In his troubled eye
Shadows from clouds unseen they spy;
They could not mark within his breast
The pang which pleading thought oppressed:
He spoke, nor felt the bitterness die.

“My word is given–it ties my sword;
Even were banners still abroad,
Never could I strive in arms again
While you, as fit, that pledge retain.
Our cause I followed, stood in field and gate–
All’s over now, and now I follow Fate.
But this is naught. A People call–
A desolted land, and all
The brood of ills that press so sore,
The natural offspring of this civil war,
Which ending not in fame, such as might rear
Fitly its sculptured trophy here,
Yields harvest large of doubt and dread
To all who have the heart and head
To feel and know. How shall I speak?
Thoughts knot with thoughts, and utterance check.
Before my eyes there swims a haze,
Through mists departed comrades gaze–
First to encourage, last that shall upbraid!
How shall I speak? The South would fain
Feel peace, have quiet law again–
Replant the trees for homestead-shade.
You ask if she recants: she yields.
Nay, and would more; would blend anew,
As the bones of the slain in her forests do,
Bewailed alike by us and you.
A voice comes out from these charnel-fields,
A plaintive yet unheeded one:
‘Died all in vain? both sides undone’
Push not your triumph; do not urge
Submissiveness beyond the verge.
Intestine rancor would you bide,
Nursing eleven sliding daggers in your side?

“Far from my thought to school or threat;
I speak the things which hard beset.
Where various hazards meet the eyes,
To elect in magnanimity is wise.
Reap victory’s fruit while sound the core;
What sounder fruit than re-established law?
I know your partial thoughts do press
Solely on us for war’s unhappy stress;
But weigh–consider–look at all,
And broad anathema you’ll recall.
The censor’s charge I’ll not repeat,
The meddlers kindled the war’s white heat–
Vain intermeddlers and malign,
Both of the palm and of the pine;
I waive the thought–which never can be rife–
Common’s the crime in every civil strife:
But this I feel, that North and South were driven
By Fate to arms. For our unshriven,
What thousands, truest souls, were tried–
As never may any be again–
All those who stemmed Secession’s pride,
But at last were swept by the urgent tide
Into the chasm. I know their pain.
A story here may be applied:
‘In Moorish lands there lived a maid
Brought to confess by vow the creed
Of Christians. Fain would priests persuade
That now she must approve by deed
The faith she kept. “What dead?” she asked.
“Your old sire leave, nor deem it sin,
And come with us.” Still more they tasked
The sad one: “If heaven you’d win–
Far from the burning pit withdraw,
Then must you learn to hate your kin,
Yea, side against them–such the law,
For Moor and Christian are at war”
“Then will I never quit my sire,
But here with him through every trial go,
Nor leave him though in flames below–
God help me in his fire!”
So in the South; vain every plea
‘Gainst Nature’s strong fidelity;
True to the home and to the heart,
Throngs cast their lot with kith and kin,
Foreboding, cleaved to the natural part–
Was this the unforgivable sin?
These noble spirits are yet yours to win.
Shall the great North go Sylla’s way?
Proscribe? prolong the evil day?
Confirm the curse? infix the hate?
In Unions name forever alienate?