<h2><SPAN name="page52"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>THE VOICE</h2>
<p class="poetry">I dreamed a Voice, of one God-authorised,<br/>
Cried loudly thro’ the world, ‘Disarm!
Disarm!’<br/>
And there was consternation in the camps;<br/>
And men who strutted under braid and lace<br/>
Beat on their medalled breasts, and wailed,
‘Undone!’<br/>
The word was echoed from a thousand hills,<br/>
And shop and mill, and factory and forge,<br/>
Where throve the awful industries of death,<br/>
Hushed into silence. Scrawled upon the doors,<br/>
The passer read, ‘Peace bids her children starve.’<br/>
But foolish women clasped their little sons<br/>
And wept for joy, not reasoning like men.</p>
<p class="poetry">Again the Voice commanded: ‘Now go
forth<br/>
And build a world for Progress and for Peace.<br/>
This work has waited since the earth was shaped;<br/>
But men were fighting, and they could not toil.<br/>
<SPAN name="page53"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>The needs
of life outnumber needs of death.<br/>
Leave death with God. Go forth, I say, and
build.’</p>
<p class="poetry">And then a sudden, comprehensive joy<br/>
Shone in the eyes of men; and one who thought<br/>
Only of conquests and of victories<br/>
Woke from his gloomy reverie and cried,<br/>
‘Ay, come and build! I challenge all to try.<br/>
And I will make a world more beautiful<br/>
Than Eden was before the serpent came.’<br/>
And like a running flame on western wilds,<br/>
Ambition spread from mind to listening mind,<br/>
And lo! the looms were busy once again,<br/>
And all the earth resounded with men’s toil.</p>
<p class="poetry">Vast palaces of Science graced the world;<br/>
Their banquet tables spread with feasts of truth<br/>
For all who hungered. Music kissed the air,<br/>
Once rent with boom of cannons. Statues gleamed<br/>
From wooded ways, where ambushed armies hid<br/>
In times of old. The sea and air were gay<br/>
With shining sails that soared from land to land.<br/>
A universal language of the world<br/>
Made nations kin, and poverty was known</p>
<p class="poetry"><SPAN name="page54"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
54</span>But as a word marked ‘obsolete,’ like
war.<br/>
The arts were kindled with celestial fire;<br/>
New poets sang so Homer’s fame grew dim;<br/>
And brush and chisel gave the wondering race<br/>
Sublimer treasures than old Greece displayed.<br/>
Men differed still; fierce argument arose,<br/>
For men are human in this human sphere;<br/>
But unarmed Arbitration stood between<br/>
And Reason settled in a hundred hours<br/>
What War disputed for a hundred years.</p>
<p class="poetry">Oh, that a Voice, of one God-authorised<br/>
Might cry to all mankind, Disarm! Disarm!</p>
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