Misgivings (1860)

Battle-Pieces and Others Aspects of War

When ocean-clouds over inland hillsSweep storming in late autumn brown,And horror the sodden valley fills,And the spire falls crashing in the town,I muse upon my country’s ills-The tempest burning from the waste of TimeOn the world’s fairest hope linked with man’s foulest crime.

Nature’s dark side is heeded now-(Ah! optimist-cheer disheartened flown)-A child may read the moody browOf yon black mountain lone.With shouts the torrents down the gorges go,And storms are formed behind the storms we feel:The hemlock shakes in the rafter, the oak in the driving keel.

from Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War