Britons and French with hearts and hands!
Knit ye the league of the neighbor lands!
Doubts and fears to the winds be hurled!
Freedom and friendship win the world!
We have conquered each other enough to prove
That that which must conquer at last is Love;
For a loveless man is a lifeless clod,
And the spirit of Love is a spark from God:
O Love-star, rise in the night, we pray,
And lead, lead on to diviner day.
The nations have heard, they have heard a call,
The voice was the voice of the Lord of all;
His mold is ready, his furnace hot,
He hath men's hearts in the smelting-pot
! For a time is coming—ah, let it come!
When the tiger in man shall be quelled and dumb;
When the shuttle of death shall ply no more
'Twixt the hands of the weaver whose warp is war,
And envy and hate no more have sway,
For the former things shall have passed away.
But what of the word our ears once heard
That or ever the ages cease,
King Arthur himself should homage pay
To a mightier one of wider sway
Whom North, South, East, and West obey,
Lover and Lord of peace?
O winds be whist! O waters dumb!
The King is coming! The King is come!A correction was made in the August 1909 Journal: "The poem 'The Coming of the King,' which appeared on page 738 of the March number of the Journal, was credited by error to Louis N. Parker. The author of the poem is James Rhoades."
