<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">Men Have Wings at Last</h1><h1 align="center" class="head">(Air-Craft and the War)</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"<span class="smallcaps">Wolf</span>, Wolf-stay-at-home,</p><p class="line">Prowler, -- scout,</p><p class="line">Clanless and castaways,</p><p class="line">And ailing with the drought,</p><p class="line">Out from your hidings, -- hither to the call;</p><p class="line">Lift up your eyes to the high wind-fall!</p><p class="line">Lift up your eyes from the poisoned spring;</p><p class="line">Overhead, -- overhead! The dragon Thing,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%">-- What should it bring?</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%">-- Poising on the wing?"</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Wolf, Wolf, Old one, I saw it, even I.</p><p class="line">Yesterday, yesterday, the Thing came by</p><p class="line">Prowling at the outpost of the last lean wood,</p><p class="line">By the gray waste ashes where the minster stood;</p><p class="line">And out through the cloister where the belfry fronts</p><p class="line">The market-place, and the town was once;</p><p class="line">High, -- high above the bright wide square</p><p class="line">And the folk all flocking together, unaware,</p><p class="line">The Thing-with-the-wings came there.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%">Brother Vulture saw it</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%">And called me, as it passed:</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%"><em>'Look and see, look and see, --</em></p><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%"><em>Men have wings at last.'</em></p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"By the eyeless belfry I saw it, overhead,</p><p class="line">Poised like a hawk, -- like a storm unshed.</p><p class="line">Near the huddled doves there, from the shattered cote,</p><p class="line">I watched too.... And it smote!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Not a threat of thunder, -- not an armèd man,</p><p class="line">Where the fury struck, and the fleet fire ran. --</p><p class="line">But girl-child, man-child, mothers and their young,</p><p class="line">Newborn of woman, with milk upon its tongue;</p><p class="line">Nursling where it clung.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Not a talon reached they, yet, the lords of prey!</p><p class="line">But left the red dregs there, rent and cast away;</p><p class="line">Fled from the spoils there, scattered things accurst:</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%">-- It was not for hunger;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:14%">It was not for thirst.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%">"From the eyeless belfry,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%">Brother Vulture laughed:</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%"><em>'This is all we have to see</em></p><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%"><em>For his mastercraft?</em></p><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%"><em>-- Old ones, and lean ones,</em></p><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%"><em>Never now to fast,</em></p><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%"><em>Men have wings at last!'</em></p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Brought they any tidings for us from the Sun?"</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%">"No, my chief, not one."</p><p class="line">"Left they not a road-sign, how the way was won?"</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%">"No, my chief, none.</p><p class="line">But girl-child, man-child, creature yet unborn,</p><p class="line">Doe and fawn together so, weltering and torn,</p><p class="line">Newborn of woman where the flag-stones bled;</p><p class="line">(Better can the vultures do, for the shamèd dead.)</p><p class="line">Road-dust sobbing where the lightning burst --</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%">It was not for hunger;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%">It was not for thirst."</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Brought they not some token that the stars look on?"</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%">-- "No, my chief, none."</p><p class="line">"Never yet a message from the highways overhead?"</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:10%">-- "Brother, I have said."</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Old years, gray years, years of growing things,</p><p class="line">We have toiled and kept the watch with our wonderings;</p><p class="line">But to see what things should be, when that Men had wings.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Sea-mark, sea-wall, -- ships above the tide;</p><p class="line">Mine and mole-way under-earth, to have its hidden pride; --</p><p class="line">Not enough, not enough; more and more beside!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Bridle, for our proud-of-mane, -- then the triple yoke;</p><p class="line">Ox-goad and lash again, and bonded fellow-folk!</p><p class="line">Not enough; not enough; -- for his master-stroke.</p><p class="line">Thunder trapped and muttering and led away for thrall;</p><p class="line">Lightnings leashed together then, at his beck and call;</p><p class="line">Not enough; not enough; -- for his Wherewithal!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line" style="text-indent:6%">"He must look with evil eye</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:6%">On the spaces of the sky:</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:8%">He must scheme, and try! --</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:6%">While all we, with dread and awe,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:6%">Sheathing and unsheathing claw,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:8%">Watch apart, and prophesy</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:6%">That we never saw. --</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line" style="text-indent:6%">"Wings, to seek his more-and-more</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:8%">Where we knew us blind;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:6%">Wings to make him conqueror,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:8%">With his master-mind;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:6%">Wings, that he out-watch, -- out-soar,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:8%">Eagle and his kind!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Lo, the dream fulfilled at last! -- And the dread outgrown,</p><p class="line">Broken, as a bird's heart; -- fallen as a stone</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:8%">....What was he, to make afraid?</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:8%">-- Hating all that he had made?</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:8%">-- Hating all his own.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Scatter to your strongholds, till the race is run.</p><p class="line">Doe and fawn together, so, soon it will be done.</p><p class="line">Never now, never now, Ship without a mast,</p><p class="line">In the harbors of the Sun, do you make fast!</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:8%">But the floods shall cleanse again</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:8%">Every blackened trail of Men, --</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:8%">Men with wings, at last!"</p></div><p class="byline">-- Josephine Preston Peabody.</p></body></html> · Great War