Poems (Crandall)/Peace on Earth

by Rosa Neil Crandall

For works with similar titles, see Peace on Earth.

Peace on Earth

We have read the beautiful story
  Of the shepherds and angels of light;
But where shall the harassed souls of men
  Find peace upon earth tonight?

In Russia, suffering Russia,
  Where a maddened peasant throng
Is striving against the ruling powers,
  To right oppression's wrong?

Where tyrants cower and tremble
  As the people's arm grows strong?
Do you think the Czar or the howling mob
  Heed the herald angels' song?

In England, that grand old country,
  Where starving humans cry
From the great and rich metroplis
  For work, lest their loved ones die?

Eight hundred thousand waiting
  For food or for death's release;
Think you this starving multitude
  In their garrets and cellars find peace?

And what of fair Columbia,
  The honored land of our birth,
Does she prize the gracious gift from Heaven
  Of peace and good will upon earth?

We crowd and we trample each other,
  God's gift we have thrown away;
What fools—what base ingratitude;
  But—'tis dollars or death today.

Is there peace in the home of the drunkard?
  Sweet peace in the prison cell,
Where a man with a youthful haggard face
  Is waiting to hear death's knell?

He remembers nothing, they tell him
  He murdered his child and his wife.
We sold him the drink that made him a brute
  And now make him forfeit his life.

If the angels that sang in Judea
  To herald our Savior and King,
Are singing to night that wonderful song;
  Methinks they must weep as they sing.

Christmas 1895