This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling,
Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;
But from 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.
*
Written in 1845, Henry Longfellow’s “The Arsenal of Springfield” was originally published in Graham’s Magazine. It was at the end of the year that the poem was then reprinted in The Belfry of Burges and Other Poems. Longfellow’s wife Fanny is considered partially responsible for the creation of the poem. As the writer Cecil Williams explains, during a wedding journey the pair visited Springfield, Massachusetts, and Fanny encouraged her husband to write a poem. Longfellow’s inspiration for the poem also came from from reading Charles Sumner’s address The True Grandeur of Nations and Sumner had joined them on their trip.
The simile “Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms” brings forth remembrance and the poem recounts the somber and damaging times of war. Longfellow uses rhyme in every stanza to emphasize the destruction and chaos a war can bring. “The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns / The wail of famine in beleaguered towns” is an example of the rhyme and imagery. While he mentions the events of war, Longfellow references aspects of Aztec and Norse war. It’s almost as if he is showing the reader the past so they are not doomed to repeat it. The last few stanzas of the poem shift to an alternative to war and describes what a world would be without it. “There were no need of arsenals or forts:” The first person feels like he is retelling memories directly to the reader. The use of “I” reinforces that the speaker was there and has seen and experienced the destruction and has hope for a better future.
While the poem was received positively, in 1852 Jacob Abbott commented in Harper’s that it seems almost impossible to relate muskets which bring carnage to an organ that is meant to play beautiful music. He writes, ought, perhaps, to be considered rather as instruments of security and peace… They protect by their existence, and not by their action….”
The poem stands out as a call to peace. It is a poem about the tragedy of war that turns a call for hope with a lasting message of how beautiful the world could be.
Bibliography and Further Reading Charles Sumner, The True Grandeur of Nations, the Internet Archive; “The Arsenal at Springfield’ by Longfellow,” National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior; Tensions Concerning Armory Production Just Prior to the Civil War, Forge of Innovation, University of Massachusetts;
Credits Composed by Asia Hill, Fall 2018. Reading by Asia Hill.
