Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/234

 208 JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEA BODY

' Look and see, look and see, — Men have wings at last.'

"By the eyeless belfry I saw it, overhead,

Poised like a hawk, — like a storm unshed.

Near the huddled doves there, from the shattered

cote, I watched too. . . . And it smote !

" Not a threat of thunder, — not an armed man, Where the fury struck, and the fleet fire ran. — But girl-child, man-child, mothers and their young, Newborn of woman, with milk upon its tongue ; Nursling where it clung.

" Not a talon reached they, yet, the lords of prey ! But left the red dregs there, rent and cast away ; Fled from the spoils there, scattered things accurst :

— It was not for hunger ; It was not for thirst.

"From the eyeless belfry. Brother Vulture laughed : ' This is all we have to see For his master-craft f

— Old ones, and lean ones, Never now to fast.

Men have wings at last ! '

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