Apathy and Enthusiasm

(1860–1.) I.
 O the clammy cold November, 
 And the winter white and dead, 
And the terror dumb with stupor, 
 And the sky a sheet of lead; 
And events that came resounding 
 With the cry that All was lost, 
Like the thunder-cracks of massy ice 
 In intensity of frost— 
Bursting one upon another 
 Through the horror of the calm. 
 The paralysis of arm 
In the anguish of the heart; 
And the hollowness and dearth. 
 The appealings of the mother 
 To brother and to brother 
Not in hatred so to part— 
And the fissure in the hearth 
 Growing momently more wide. 
Then the glances 'tween the Fates, 
 And the doubt on every side, 
And the patience under gloom 
In the stoniness that waits 
The finality of doom. 
 
II.
 So the winter died despairing, 
 And the weary weeks of Lent; 
And the ice-bound rivers melted, 
 And the tomb of Faith was rent. 
O, the rising of the People 
 Came with springing of the grass, 
They rebounded from dejection 
 And Easter came to pass. 
And the young were all elation 
 Hearing Sumter's cannon roar, 
And they thought how tame the Nation 
 In the age that went before. 
And Michael seemed gigantical, 
 The Arch-fiend but a dwarf; 
And at the towers of Erebus 
 Our striplings flung the scoff. 
But the elders with foreboding 
 Mourned the days forever o'er, 
And re called the forest proverb, 
 The Iroquois' old saw: 
Grief to every graybeard 
 When young Indians lead the war.