A. D. Nineteen Hundred

War and Disaster, Famine and Pestilence, Vaunt-couriers of the Century that comes, Behold them shaking their tremendous plumes Above the world! Lo, all the air grows dense With rumors of destruction and a sense, Cadaverous, of corpses and of tombs Predestined; while,--like monsters in the glooms,-- Bristling with battle, shadowy and immense, The Nations rise in dread apocalypse.-- Where now the boast Earth makes of civilization? Its brag of Christianity?--In vain We seek to see them in the wild eclipse Of hell and horror and the devastation Of Death triumphant on his hills of slain.