And the Greatest of These Is War + 

Around the council-board of Hell, with Satan at their head, + 

The Three Great Scourges of humanity sat. + 

Gaunt Famine, with hollow cheek and voice, arose and spoke⁠— + 

“O, Prince, I have stalked the earth, + 

And my victims by ten thousands I have slain, + 

I have smitten old and young. + 

Mouths of the helpless old moaning for bread, I have filled with dust; + 

And I have laughed to see a crying babe tug at the shriveling breast + 

Of its mother, dead and cold. + 

I have heard the cries and prayers of men go up to a tearless sky, + 

And fall back upon an earth of ashes; + 

But, heedless, I have gone on with my work. + 

’Tis thus, O, Prince, that I have scourged mankind.” + 

And Satan nodded his head. + 

Pale Pestilence, with stenchful breath, then spoke and said⁠— + 

“Great Prince, my brother, Famine, attacks the poor. + 

He is most terrible against the helpless and the old. + 

But I have made a charnel-house of the mightiest cities of men. + 

When I strike, neither their stores of gold or of grain avail. + 

With a breath I lay low their strongest, and wither up their fairest. + 

I come upon them without warning, lancing invisible death. + 

From me they flee with eyes and mouths distended; + 

I poison the air for which they gasp, and I strike them down fleeing. + 

’Tis thus, great Prince, that I have scourged mankind.” + 

And Satan nodded his head. + 

Then the red monster, War, rose up and spoke⁠— + 

His blood-shot eyes glared ’round him, and his thundering voice + 

Echoed through the murky vaults of Hell.⁠— + 

“O, mighty Prince, my brothers, Famine and Pestilence, + 

Have slain their thousands and ten thousands⁠—true; + 

But the greater their victories have been, + 

The more have they wakened in Man’s breast + 

The God-like attributes of sympathy, of brotherhood and love + 

And made of him a searcher after wisdom. + 

But I arouse in Man the demon and the brute, + 

I plant black hatred in his heart and red revenge. + 

From the summit of fifty thousand years of upward climb + 

I haul him down to the level of the start, back to the wolf. + 

I give him claws. + 

I set his teeth into his brother’s throat. + 

I make him drunk with his brother’s blood. + 

And I laugh ho! ho! while he destroys himself. + 

O, mighty Prince, not only do I slay, + 

But I draw Man hellward.” + 

And Satan smiled, stretched out his hand, and said⁠— + 

“O War, of all the scourges of humanity, I crown you chief.” + 

And Hell rang with the acclamation of the Fiends. + 