10. 
’Soldiers, our brethren and our friends are slain. 
Ye murdered them, I think, as they did sleep! 
Alas, what have ye done? the slightest pain
Which ye might suffer, there were eyes to weep,
But ye have quenched them—­there were smiles to steep 1805
Your hearts in balm, but they are lost in woe;
And those whom love did set his watch to keep
Around your tents, truth’s freedom to bestow,
Ye stabbed as they did sleep—­but they forgive ye now.

11. 
’Oh wherefore should ill ever flow from ill, 1810
And pain still keener pain for ever breed? 
We all are brethren—­even the slaves who kill
For hire, are men; and to avenge misdeed
On the misdoer, doth but Misery feed
With her own broken heart!  O Earth, O Heaven! 1815
And thou, dread Nature, which to every deed
And all that lives, or is, to be hath given,
Even as to thee have these done ill, and are forgiven!

12. 
’Join then your hands and hearts, and let the past
Be as a grave which gives not up its dead 1820
To evil thoughts.’—­A film then overcast
My sense with dimness, for the wound, which bled
Freshly, swift shadows o’er mine eyes had shed. 
When I awoke, I lay mid friends and foes,
And earnest countenances on me shed 1825
The light of questioning looks, whilst one did close
My wound with balmiest herbs, and soothed me to repose;

13. 
And one whose spear had pierced me, leaned beside
With quivering lips and humid eyes;—­and all
Seemed like some brothers on a journey wide 1830
Gone forth, whom now strange meeting did befall
In a strange land, round one whom they might call
Their friend, their chief, their father, for assay
Of peril, which had saved them from the thrall
Of death, now suffering.  Thus the vast array 1835
Of those fraternal bands were reconciled that day.

14. 
Lifting the thunder of their acclamation,
Towards the City then the multitude,
And I among them, went in joy—­a nation
Made free by love;—­a mighty brotherhood 1840
Linked by a jealous interchange of good;
A glorious pageant, more magnificent
Than kingly slaves arrayed in gold and blood,
When they return from carnage, and are sent
In triumph bright beneath the populous battlement. 1845

15. 
Afar, the city-walls were thronged on high,
And myriads on each giddy turret clung,
And to each spire far lessening in the sky
Bright pennons on the idle winds were hung;
As we approached, a shout of joyance sprung 1850
At once from all the crowd, as if the vast
And peopled Earth its boundless skies among
The sudden clamour of delight had cast,
When from before its face some general wreck had passed.