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?

“From reason who can urge the plea—­
Freemen conquerors of the free? 
When blood returns to the shrunken vein,
Shall the wound of the Nation bleed again? 
Well may the wars wan thought supply,
And kill the kindling of the hopeful eye,
Unless you do what even kings have done
In leniency—­unless you shun
To copy Europe in her worst estate—­
Avoid the tyranny you reprobate.”

He ceased.  His earnestness unforeseen
Moved, but not swayed their former mien;
  And they dismissed him.  Forth he went
Through vaulted walks in lengthened line
Like porches erst upon the Palatine: 
  Historic reveries their lesson lent,
  The Past her shadow through the Future sent.

But no.  Brave though the Soldier, grave his plea—­
  Catching the light in the future’s skies,
Instinct disowns each darkening prophecy: 
  Faith in America never dies;
Heaven shall the end ordained fulfill,
We march with Providence cheery still.

A Meditation: 

Attributed to a northerner after attending the last of two funerals from the same homestead—­those of a national and a confederate officer (brothers), his kinsmen, who had died from the effects of wounds received in the closing battles.

A Meditation.

How often in the years that close,
  When truce had stilled the sieging gun,
The soldiers, mounting on their works,
  With mutual curious glance have run
From face to face along the fronting show,
And kinsman spied, or friend—­even in a foe.

What thoughts conflicting then were shared. 
  While sacred tenderness perforce
Welled from the heart and wet the eye;
  And something of a strange remorse
Rebelled against the sanctioned sin of blood,
And Christian wars of natural brotherhood.

Then stirred the god within the breast—­
  The witness that is man’s at birth;
A deep misgiving undermined
  Each plea and subterfuge of earth;
The felt in that rapt pause, with warning rife,
Horror and anguish for the civil strife.

Of North or South they recked not then,
  Warm passion cursed the cause of war: 
Can Africa pay back this blood
  Spilt on Potomac’s shore? 
Yet doubts, as pangs, were vain the strife to stay,
And hands that fain had clasped again could slay.

How frequent in the camp was seen
  The herald from the hostile one,
A guest and frank companion there
  When the proud formal talk was done;
The pipe of peace was smoked even ’mid the war,
And fields in Mexico again fought o’er.