The Hour

This is the world's stupendous hour -          The supreme moment for the race     To see the emptiness of power,          The worthlessness of wealth and place,     To see the purpose and the plan     Conceived by God for growing man.     And they who see and comprehend          That ultimate and lofty aim     Will wait in patience for the end,          Knowing injustice cannot claim     One lasting victory, or control     Laws that bar progress for the whole.     This is an epoch-making time;          God thunders through the universe     A message glorious and sublime,          At once a blessing and a curse.     Blessings for those who seek His light,     Curses for those whose law is might.     Ephemeral as the sunset glow          Is human grandeur.    Mortal life     Was given that souls might seek and know          Immortal truths; and through the strife     That shakes the earth from land to land     The wise shall hear and understand.     Out of the awful holocaust,          Out of the whirlwind and the flood,     Out of old creeds to Bedlam tossed,          Shall rise a new earth washed in blood -     A new race filled with spirit power,     This is the world's stupendous hour.