Those who to their minds were but poisonous vermin—men!
I saw all human eyes
In terror fixed on the skies.
And I felt how one thought, like a signal, ran
Through the trenches of Earth from man to man,
Then leaped from the mire and forth
To the east and the west, to the south and the north,
Where the human enemies lay;
And it met with this self-same thought half-way;
"Let there be peace!
We are faced by a common foe; let the wars of the earth-born cease!
Shall brother and brother fight with the day of doom in sight?"
Mute thought became vocal then
In the cry of a world distraught:
"Peace among men!"
And, hard on the heels of thought,
From their trenches poured the embattled folk of the world,
With battle-flags furled,
And, with cries of good-will,
Sprang forth to embrace,
Those whom, the moment before, in that charnel-like place,
They had lusted to kill.
