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

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there raind a ghastly dew
From the nations airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro the thunder-storm;

Till the war-drum throbbd no longer, and the battle-flags were furld
In the Parliament of man, 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.

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Locksley Hall” (1842)

In the first week of September 2001, the kindly earth, lapt in univers ...

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