Why poets should sing of this War
In rapturous anthems of praise,
I know not. Its meanings so jar,
Its purpose hath so many ways,
The Sphinx never readeth the whole.
'Tis a riddle propounded to me
That I am unskillful to tell.
The Sphinx by the way-side, I see,
Is watching (I know her so well)
To mangle us, body and soul.
Is it 'Freedom, that Bondage may live,'
Which cheers on the North to the fray?
Is it 'Slavery more Freedom to give,'
That slogans the Southern foray?
She asks, and awaits your reply:
Now answer, ye marshal-bred bands
Whose business is murder and blood;
Ye priests with incarnadined hands;
Ye peace-men who 'fight for the good;'
Now solve her this riddle or die!
'Our Flag,' the conservative says,
'Waves over the land of the free;'
God save us!—I think many ways,
But still 'tis a riddle to me,
Whose mystery is hid from the eye;
But Oedipus, showing the souls
All fettered, imbruted and blained,
Who point where its blazonry rolls,
And wail the sad plaint of the chained,—
Asserts, 'There is, somewhere, a lie.'