Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MEN HAVE WINGS AT LAST by JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY

Poet Analysis

First Line: WOLF, WOLF-STAY-AT-HOME
Last Line: "MEN WITH WINGS, AT LAST!"
Subject(s): AIR WARFARE;
"Wolf, Wolf-stay-at-home,
Prowler, -- scout,
Clanless and castaways,
And ailing with the drought,
Out from your hidings, -- hither to the call;
Lift up your eyes to the high wind-fall!
Lift up your eyes from the poisoned spring;
Overhead, -- overhead! The dragon Thing,
-- What should it bring?
-- Poising on the wing?"

"Wolf, Wolf, Old one, I saw it, even I.
Yesterday, yesterday, the Thing came by
Prowling at the outpost of the last lean wood,
By the gray waste ashes where the minster stood;
And out through the cloister where the belfry fronts
The market-place and the town was once;
High, -- high above the bright wide square
And the folk all flocking together, unaware,
The Thing-with-the-wings came there.
Brother Vulture saw it
And called me, as it passed:
@3'Look and see, look and see, --
Men have wings at last.'@1

"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:
@3'This is all we have to see
For his master-craft?
-- Old ones, and lean ones,
Never now to fast,
Men have wings at last!'@1

"Brought they any tidings for us from the Sun?"
"No, my chief, not one."
"Left they not a road-sign, how the way was won?"
"No, my chief, none.
But girl-child, man-child, creature yet unborn,
Doe and fawn together so, weltering and torn,
Newborn of woman where the flag-stones bled;
(Better can the vultures do, for the shamed dead.)
Road-dust sobbing where the lightning burst --
It was not for hunger;
It was not for thirst."

"Brought they not some token that the stars look on?"
-----"No, my chief, none."
"Never yet a message from the highways overhead?"
-----"Brother, I have said."
"Old years, gray years, years of growing things,
We have toiled and kept the watch with our wonderings;
But to see what thing should be, when that Men had wings.

"Sea-mark, sea-wall, -- ships above the tide;
Mine and mole-way under-earth, to have its hidden pride; --
Not enough, not enough; more and more beside!

"Bridle for our proud-of-mane, -- then the triple yoke;
Ox-goad and lash again, and bonded fellow-folk!
Not enough; not enough; -- for his master-stroke.
Thunder trapped and muttering and led away for thrall;
Lightnings leashed together then, at his beck and call;
Not enough; not enough; -- for his Wherewithal!

"He must look with evil eye
On the spaces of the sky:
He must scheme, and try! --
While all we, with dread and awe,
Sheathing and unsheathing claw,
Watch apart, and prophesy
That we never saw. --

"Wings, to seek his more-and-more
Where we knew us blind;
Wings to make him conqueror,
With his master-mind;
Wings, that he out-watch, -- out-soar,
Eagle and his kind!

"Lo, the dream fulfilled at last! -- And the dread outgrown,
Broken, as a bird's heart; -- fallen as a stone
. . . What was he, to make afraid?
----- Hating all that he had made?
----- Hating all his own.

"Scatter to your strongholds, till the race is run.
Doe and fawn together, so, soon it will be done.
Never now, never now, Ship without a mast,
In the harbors of the Sun, do you make fast!
But the floods shall cleanse again
Every blackened trail of Men, --
Men with wings, at last!"



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