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Title: The Last Battle
Author: Alfred Noyes [
More Titles by Noyes]
Kings of the earth, Kings of the earth, the trumpet rings for warning,
And like the golden swords that ray from out the setting sun
The shout goes out of the trumpet mouth across the hills of morning,
Wake; for the last great battle dawns and all the wars are done.
Now all the plains of Europe smoke with marching hooves of thunder,
And through each ragged mountain-gorge the guns begin to gleam;
And round a hundred cities where the women watch and wonder,
The tramp of passing armies aches and faints into a dream.
The King of Ind is drawing nigh: a hundred leagues are clouded
Along his loud earth-shaking march from east to western sea:
The King o' the Setting Sun is here and all the seas are shrouded
With sails that carry half the world to front Eternity.
Soon shall the darkness roll around the grappling of the nations,
A darkness lit with deadly gleams of blood and steel and fire;
Soon shall the last great paean of earth's war-worn generations
Roar through the thunder-clouded air round War's red funeral pyre.
But here defeat and victory are both allied with heaven,
The enfolding sky makes every foe the centre of her dome,
Each fights for God and his own right, and unto each is given
The right to find the heart of heaven where'er he finds his home.
O, who shall win, and who shall lose, and who shall take the glory
Here at the meeting of the roads, where every cause is right?
O, who shall live, and who shall die, and who shall tell the story?
Each strikes for faith and fatherland in that immortal fight.
High on the grey old hills of Time the last immortal rally,
Under the storm of the last great tattered flag, shall laugh to see
The blood of Armageddon roll from every smoking valley,
Shall laugh aloud, then rush on death for God and chivalry.
Kings of the earth, Kings of the earth, O, which of you then shall inherit
The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory? for the world's old light grows dim
And the cry of you all goes up all night to the dark enfolding Spirit,
Each of you fights for God and home; but God, ah, what of Him?
[The end]
Alfred Noyes's poem: Last Battle
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