Herba Santa

I     After long wars when comes release     Not olive wands proclaiming peace     Can import dearer share     Than stems of Herba Santa hazed     In autumn's Indian air.     Of moods they breathe that care disarm,     They pledge us lenitive and calm.     II     Shall code or creed a lure afford     To win all selves to Love's accord?     When Love ordained a supper divine     For the wide world of man,     What bickerings o'er his gracious wine!     Then strange new feuds began.     Effectual more in lowlier way,     Pacific Herb, thy sensuous plea     The bristling clans of Adam sway     At least to fellowship in thee!     Before thine altar tribal flags are furled,     Fain wouldst thou make one hearthstone of the world.     III     To scythe, to sceptre, pen and hod--     Yea, sodden laborers dumb;     To brains overplied, to feet that plod,     In solace of the Truce of God     The Calumet has come!     IV     Ah for the world ere Raleigh's find     Never that knew this suasive balm     That helps when Gilead's fails to heal,     Helps by an interserted charm.     Insinuous thou that through the nerve     Windest the soul, and so canst win     Some from repinings, some from sin,     The Church's aim thou dost subserve.     The ruffled fag fordone with care     And brooding, God would ease this pain:     Him soothest thou and smoothest down     Till some content return again.     Even ruffians feel thy influence breed     Saint Martin's summer in the mind,     They feel this last evangel plead,     As did the first, apart from creed,     Be peaceful, man--be kind!     V     Rejected once on higher plain,     O Love supreme, to come again     Can this be thine?     Again to come, and win us too     In likeness of a weed     That as a god didst vainly woo,     As man more vainly bleed?     VI     Forbear, my soul! and in thine Eastern chamber     Rehearse the dream that brings the long release:     Through jasmine sweet and talismanic amber     Inhaling Herba Santa in the passive Pipe of Peace.