Page:The poetical works of Leigh Hunt, containing many pieces now first collected 1849.djvu/159

Brute force, and fury; and the devilish drouth
Of the fool cannon's ever-gaping mouth;
And the bride-widowing sword; and the harsh ⟨bray⟩
The sneering trumpet sends across the fray;
And all which lights the people-thinning star
That selfishness invokes,—the horsed war,
Panting along with many a bloody mane.

I've thought of all this pride, and all this pain,
And all the insolent plenitudes of power,
And I declare, by this most quiet hour,
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Me and my friends here, this delightful night,
That Power itself has not one half the might
Of Gentleness. 'Tis want to all true wealth;
The uneasy madman's force, to the wise health;
Blind downward beating, to the eyes that see;
Noise to persuasion, doubt to certainty;
The consciousness of strength in enemies,
Who must be strain'd upon, or else they rise;
The battle to the moon, who all the while,
High out of hearing, passes with her smile;
The tempest, trampling in his scanty run,
To the whole globe, that basks about the sun;
Or as all shrieks and clangs, with which a sphere,
Undone and fired, could rake the midnight ear,
Compared with that vast dumbness nature keeps
Throughout her starry deeps,
Most old, and mild, and awful, and unbroken,
Which tells a tale of peace beyond whate'er was spoken.