It feels a shame to be Alive—
When Men so brave— are dead—
One envies the Distinguished Dust—
Permitted— such a Head—

The Stone— that tells defending Whom
This Spartan put away
What little of Him we— possessed
In Pawn for Liberty—

The price is great— Sublimely paid—
Do we deserve— a Thing—
That lives— like Dollars— must be piled
Before we may obtain?

Are we that wait— sufficient worth—
That such Enormous Pearl
As life— dissolved be— for Us—
In Battle's— horrid Bowl?

It may be— a Renown to live—
I think the Man who die—
Those unsustained— Saviors—
Present Divinity—

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POEM 739

I many times thought Peace had come
When Peace was far away—
As Wrecked Men— deem they sight the Land—
At Centre of the Sea—

And struggle slacker— but to prove
As hopelessly as I—
How many the fictitious Shores—
Before the Harbor be—

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POEM 912

Peace is a fiction of our Faith—
The Bells a Winter Night
Bearing the Neighbor out of Sound
That never did alight.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
(Edited by Thomas H. Johnson),
Little Brown, Boston, 1955, pp. 213, 362, 430

Notes: These poems were written in 1862, 1863, and 1865
during the Civil War (1861-1865). Dickinson's Civil War.
Also: Whitman, Dickinson, and Mathew Brady's Photos.