Page:Patriotic pieces from the Great War, Jones, 1918.djvu/28

24 THEN GIVE US WINGS

If wings will help our men to see

Some Boche's belching battery,

Unloosing from a screen of trees

Its screeching death upon the breeze—

Or help our giant guns to search

With truer aim each hidden perch

Of Teuton guns, and make them meek,

Ere they again may chance to speak—

If wings, O God, will do these things,

Then give us wings.

If great, destroying wings might stay

Munitions in their hurried way,

Or hold a reënforcement back

By dropping ruin on its track,

Or yet set free the pent-up hell

Of depots filled with shot and shell,

Or swiftly give eternal sleep

To ships that prowl the nether deep—

If wings, O God, will do these things,

Then give us wings and still more wings.

If fast, avenging wings might cast

On German cities such a blast

Of desolating death and pain