Lexington

No Berserk thirst of blood had they,     No battle-joy was theirs, who set     Against the alien bayonet     Their homespun breasts in that old day.     Their feet had trodden peaceful, ways;     They loved not strife, they dreaded pain;     They saw not, what to us is plain,     That God would make man's wrath his praise.     No seers were they, but simple men;     Its vast results the future hid     The meaning of the work they did     Was strange and dark and doubtful then.     Swift as their summons came they left     The plough mid-furrow standing still,     The half-ground corn grist in the mill,     The spade in earth, the axe in cleft.     They went where duty seemed to call,     They scarcely asked the reason why;     They only knew they could but die,     And death was not the worst of all!     Of man for man the sacrifice,     All that was theirs to give, they gave.     The flowers that blossomed from their grave     Have sown themselves beneath all skies.     Their death-shot shook the feudal tower,     And shattered slavery's chain as well;     On the sky's dome, as on a bell,     Its echo struck the world's great hour.     That fateful echo is not dumb     The nations listening to its sound     Wait, from a century's vantage-ground,     The holier triumphs yet to come,     The bridal time of Law and Love,     The gladness of the world's release,     When, war-sick, at the feet of Peace     The hawk shall nestle with the dove!     The golden age of brotherhood     Unknown to other rivalries     Than of the mild humanities,     And gracious interchange of good,     When closer strand shall lean to strand,     Till meet, beneath saluting flags,     The eagle of our mountain-crags,     The lion of our Motherland