Prescience

[NutmegCT]

Wow - this was written in 1835. Seems to predict the development of commercial aviation, then aerial warfare, then world-wide war, then eventual peace under law.


"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 rain'd 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 throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
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."

from Locksley Hall by Alfred Tennyson, 1835.

 

[waltesefalcon]

You could also interpret the "federation of the world" as the UN. Winston Churchill considered this poem to be somewhat prophetic. The modern world in many ways does fall short of the poems utopian ideals. Its a good bit of poetry, though I am slightly ambivalent about the protagonist.