Page:Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War.djvu/249



How often in the years that close,

When truce had stilled the sieging gun,

The soldiers, mounting on their works,

With mutual curious glance have run

From face to face along the fronting show,

And kinsman spied, or friend—even in a foe.

What thoughts conflicting then were shared.

While sacred tenderness perforce

Welled from the heart and wet the eye;

And something of a strange remorse

Rebelled against the sanctioned sin of blood,

And Christian wars of natural brotherhood.

Then stirred the god within the breast—

The witness that is man's at birth;

A deep misgiving undermined

Each plea and subterfuge of earth;

The felt in that rapt pause, with warning rife,

Horror and anguish for the civil strife.