The Arsenal at Springfield
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Afternoon in February
An April Day
The Arrow and the Song
The Arsenal at Springfield
Autumn
Autumn Within
The Beleaguered City
The Belfry of Bruges
Birds Of Passage
Blind Bartimeus
The Bridge
Burial of the Minnisink
Carillon
Changed
Children
The Children's Hour
The Courtship of Miles Standish
Curfew
Dante
Day is Done
Drinking Song
Endymion
Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie
The Evening Star
Excelsior
Fata Morgana
Flowers
Footsteps of Angels
A Gleam of Sunshine
Goblet of Life
God's Acre
The Good Part, That Shall Not be Taken Away
Hymn of the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem at the Consecration of Pulaski's Banner
Hymn to the Night
It Is Not Always May
L'Envoi
The Ladder of St. Augustine
The Light of Stars
Loss And Gain
Maidenhood
Mezzo Cammin
Midnight Mass for the Dying Year
My Lost Youth
Nature
The Norman Baron
Nuremburg
The Occultation of Orion
The Old Clock on the Stairs
Paul Revere's Ride
A Psalm of Life
The Quadroon Girl
Rain in Summer
The Rainy Day
The Reaper and the Flowers
The Republic
The Skeleton in Armor
The Slave In the Dismal Swamp
The Slave Singing at Midnight
The Slave's Dream
Snow-Flakes
The Song of Hiawatha
The Sound Of The Sea
Spirit of Poetry
St. John's, Cambridge
Sunrise on the Hills
The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls
To a Child
To an Old Danish Song-Book
To the Driving Cloud
To the River Charles
To William E. Channing
Village Blacksmith
Voices Of the Night
Walter Von Der Vogel Weid
The Warning
The Witnesses
Woods in Winter
Wreck of the Hesperus
This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling, Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms; But front their silent pipes no anthem pealing Startles the villages with strange alarms. Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary, When the death-angel touches those swift keys What loud lament and dismal Miserere Will mingle with their awful symphonies I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus, The cries of agony, the endless groan, Which, through the ages that have gone before us, In long reverberations reach our own. On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer, Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman's song, And loud, amid the universal clamor, O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong. I hear the Florentine, who from his palace Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din, And Aztec priests upon their teocallis Beat the wild war-drums made of serpent's skin; The tumult of each sacked and burning village; The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns; The soldiers' revels in the midst of pillage; The wail of famine in beleaguered towns; The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder, The rattling musketry, the clashing blade; And ever and anon, in tones of thunder, The diapason of the cannonade. Is it, O man, with such discordant noises, With such accursed instruments as these, Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices, And jarrest the celestial harmonies? Were half the power, that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth, bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals or forts: The warrior's name would be a name abhorred! And every nation, that should lift again Its hand against a brother, on its forehead Would wear forevermore the curse of Cain! Down the dark future, through long generations, The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease; And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations, I hear once more the voice of Christ say, "Peace!" Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies! But beautiful as songs of the immortals, The holy melodies of love arise.