Standing in the Springfield Arsenal, Longfellow sees the stacked rifles as the pipes of a giant organ—silent now, but awaiting a terrible music. He imagines Death playing those “swift keys,” unleashing a wild, dreary chorus of agony that echoes through all of human history: Saxon hammers, Norse war songs, Aztec drums, burning villages, and cannonades. The speaker is appalled that humanity drowns out nature’s sweetness with such discord, and he pleads for a different path. If even half the wealth and power poured into war were used to free minds from error, arsenals would be useless. The poem’s mood shifts from ominous dread to a vision of hope. In the end, the noise of battle fades, and Longfellow hears only the voice of Christ saying “Peace,” replaced by holy melodies of love. The arsenal’s organ gives way to a world finally in tune.
THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD — Summary
This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling, Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms; But front their silent pipes no anthem pealing Startles the villages with strange alarms.
Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary, When the death-angel touches those swift keys What loud lament and dismal Miserere Will mingle with their awful symphonies
I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus, The cries of agony, the endless groan, Which, through the ages that have gone before us, In long reverberations reach our own.
On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer, Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman's song, And loud, amid the universal clamor, O'er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong.
I hear the Florentine, who from his palace Wheels out his battle-bell with dreadful din, And Aztec priests upon their teocallis Beat the wild war-drums made of serpent's skin;
The tumult of each sacked and burning village; The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns; The soldiers' revels in the midst of pillage; The wail of famine in beleaguered towns;
The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder, The rattling musketry, the clashing blade; And ever and anon, in tones of thunder, The diapason of the cannonade.
Is it, O man, with such discordant noises, With such accursed instruments as these, Thou drownest Nature's sweet and kindly voices, And jarrest the celestial harmonies?
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:
The warrior's name would be a name abhorred! And every nation, that should lift again Its hand against a brother, on its forehead Would wear forevermore the curse of Cain!
Down the dark future, through long generations, The echoing sounds grow fainter and then cease; And like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations, I hear once more the voice of Christ say, "Peace!"
Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies! But beautiful as songs of the immortals, The holy melodies of love arise.