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Heart of New England

Chapter 58: PEACE—WITH A SWORD!
By Abbie Farwell Brown
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Poetry

About This Book

A lyric collection that moves through New England’s seasons, landscapes, and local history, blending pastoral description with folklore, legend, and occasional patriotic and religious reflections. Poems evoke shorelines, orchards, pine woods, and village life while honoring Pilgrim ancestry and the fortitude of pioneer women; other pieces imagine fairies, haunted houses, pirate lore, and convent gardens. Varied forms include children’s verses, contemplative nature lyrics, and occasional odes, united by a regionally rooted voice that balances celebration of place with quiet moral and communal meditation.

PEACE—WITH A SWORD!

“ENSE PETIT PLACIDAM SUB LIBERTATE QUIETEM”
(Motto of Massachusetts)
Peace! How we love her and the good she brings
On broad, benignant wings!
And we have clung to her, how close and long,
While she has made us strong!
Now we must guard her lest her power cease,
And in the harried world be no more peace.
Even with a sword;
Help us, O Lord.
For us no patient peace, the weary goal
Of a war-sickened soul;
No peace that battens on misfortune’s pain,
Swollen with selfish gain,
Bending slack knees before a calf of gold,
With nerveless fingers impotent to hold
The freeman’s sword:
Not this, O Lord!
No peace bought for us by the martyr dead
Of countries reeking red;
No peace flung to us from the tyrant’s hand,
Sop to a servile land.
Our Peace the State’s strong arm holds high and free,
The “placid Peace she seeks in liberty,”
Yea, “with a sword.”
Help us, O Lord!
O Massachusetts! In your golden prime,
Not with the bribe of time
You won her; subtle words and careful ways
In perilous days.
No! By your valor; by the patriot blood
Of your brave sons poured in a generous flood.
Peace, with a sword!
Help us, O Lord.
Fling out the banners that defied a king;
The tattered colors bring
That made a nation one from sea to sea,
In godly liberty.
Unsheathe the patriot sword in time of need,
O Massachusetts, shouting in the lead—
“Peace, with a sword!
Help us, O Lord!”