Alfred Lord Tennyson - Prophecy

British Poet Laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson, is responsible for many clichés and sayings we use still today (like "better to have loved and lost" and "theirs not to question why/ theirs but to do or die). In his lifetime, he published more than one hundred poems, and occasional artwork and sketches.

Prophecy

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heaven fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and the rained a ghastly dew
From the nation’s airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the people plunging thro’ the thunderstorm;

Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer, and the battle flags were furl’d
In the Parliament of men, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.