Poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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.

1. The Birth of the Orchid
2. The Black Charger
3. All the World
4. At Set of Sun
5. The Call (All wantonly in hours of joy)

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