Delayed Prophecies

          Prophets of the primal ages
          Hierophants & hoary sages
Aye, & even the universal heart of Man,
          Yearning in our narrow prison
          Toward the dawning yet unrisen,
Prophesied the golden future in God’s plan.

          Past-souls divinely gifted
          In a happy frenzy lifted
Sang the ever-coming glory of the days
          When the lion & the leopard,
          With the firstlings of the shepherd
Should in verdant fields together sport & graze.

          From the desert hot & glaring,
          Samiel, the venom-bearing
Shall retire before the greenness & the bloom,
          Pestilence & War & famine,
          Racking priest & bloody flames
Slinks like kindred wolves from sunlight, to their doom.

Then shall bitter tongues & slander,
Tyrants tools & passion’s pander,
And the lordlings of oppression wholly cease;
          Wealth & Power become defenders
          Of the poor, & Art her splendors
Lavish on the world-wide temple of God’s peace.

          Such the hope & such the vision,
          This the grand Enthusiast’s mission,
And the faint heart’s weary longing, still deferred,
          Still to be deferred, my Brothers
          Till our welfare is another’s
And the Truth’s proclaimer marries Work & Word,—

          Till the conquering arms of science
          Bind the elemental giants
To the grinding wheels of Labor & Delight;
          And the vassals seasons mingle
          Their best bounties in a single
Offering to their human Master as his right.

          When the fine consummate flower
          Of our Manhood is the dower
Of all Manhood, & our human is divine,
          And the long-defiant sinner,
          Yearning from his own Gehenna,
Lingers to uplift another more supine!

          And the reign of self is ended
          In all hearts as in the splendid
Victor martyrs who have shown us what we can;
          Then the crowning age whose token
          By the first-born seer was spoken
Will have brought the golden fullness of God’s plan,—
          Brought the dearly won fruits
          Of all holy faith & vision,
The perfected Earth the home of perfect Man!