Classic Poem

A PEACEFUL life;—just toil and rest—
All his desire;—
To read the books he liked the best
Beside the cabin fire—
God's word and man's;—to peer sometimes
Above the page, in smouldering gleams,
And catch, like far heroic rhymes,
The onmarch of his dreams.

A peaceful life;—to hear the low
Of pastured herds,
Or woodman's axe that, blow on blow,
Fell sweet as rhythmic words.
And yet there stirred within his breast
A fateful pulse that, like a roll
Of drums, made high above his rest
A tumult in his soul.

A peaceful life! . . . They haled him even
As One was haled
Whose open palms were nailed toward Heaven
When prayers nor aught availed.
And, lo, he paid the selfsame price
To lull a nation's awful strife
And will us, through the sacrifice
Of self, his peaceful life.