Walt Whitman writing during the civil war penned this poem about irreconciliable differences, and how they can lead to destruction. (This puts in proper perspective the current tone of health politic)
Reconciliation
By Walt Whitman
1819-1892
Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be
utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly
wash again, and ever again, this solid world;
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin--I draw near,
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.