The World is One

The world is one; we cannot live apart,
  To earth's remotest races we are kin;
God made the generations of one blood;
  Man's separation is a sign of sin.

What though we solve the secret of the stars,
  Or from the vibrant ether pluck a song,
Can this for all man's tyranny atone
  While Mercy weeps and waits and suffers
     long?

Put up the sword, its day of anguish past;
  Disarm the forts, and then , the war-flags
     furled,
Forever keep the air without frontiers,
  The great, free, friendly highway of the
     world.

So that at last to rapture men may come,
  And hear again the music of the spheres,
And stand erect, illumined, radiant, free,
  The travail and the triumph of the years.

--Hinton White