Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968).
The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. 1915. | | | | The Arsenal at Springfield |
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
(Probably the most popular of American poets, 1807–1882) |
| | | THIS is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling, | |
| Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms; | |
| But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing | |
| Startles the villages with strange alarms. | |
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| Ah! what a sound will rise—how wild and dreary— | 5 |
| When the death-angel touches those swift keys! | |
| What loud lament and dismal Miserere | |
| Will mingle with their awful symphonies! | |
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| I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus— | |
| The cries of agony, the endless groan, | 10 |
| Which, through the ages that have gone before us, | |
| In long reverberations reach our own.… | |
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| Is it, O man, with such discordant noises, | |
| With such accursed instruments as these, | |
| Thou drownest Nature’s sweet and kindly voices, | 15 |
| And jarrest the celestial harmonies? | |
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| 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. | 20 | | | |
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