Page:Armistice Day.djvu/317

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DISARMAMENT
295

Humblest and highest to that greatness thrill,
For the known soldier, dauntless of heart and will,
Mortally stricken in the long-drawn fray,
Reviling none, a wounded leader, lay,
And passed in silence to the eternal rest
Wherewith the soldier of the spirit is blest,
For all his weariness, his strength outpoured,
Blest even as the soldier of the sword.


Proud stands his country, bared and bowed of head,
While safe he sleeps among the deathless dead.


DISARMAMENT

BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

"Put up the sword!" The voice of Christ once more
Speaks, in the pauses of the cannon's roar,
O'er fields of corn by fiery sickles reaped
And left dry ashes; over trenches heaped
With nameless dead; o'er cities starving slow
Under a rain of fire; through wards of woe
Down which a groaning diapason runs
From tortured brothers, husbands, lovers, sons
Of desolate women in their far-off homes,
Waiting to hear the step that never comes!
O men and brothers! let that voice be heard.
War fails, try peace; put up the useless sword!