WINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 33, 8 February 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

WINGS.

The bird that, leaves tha mist-veiled earth At day's red birth, And 3oara and sings In ecstasy Free, free, Hath not more jo 7 of space than I, Nor wider freedom of the iky; I fly, I fly. Hia wings the jealou3 gods denied To man aspiring, poised for flight Eager to scale the skies, to ride The wind 3 and soar from height to height; Exulting as a bird that flings Itself upon the ether wide— Unfettered, fearless, swift E3 light, And singing while the round world swings; Yet in • the envious goda despite, Man hath his wings. He dreamed, he wrought— By toil and thought, By sweat and sacrifice he bought His wings, In desperate wild adventurings, Then like a god inspired he sought The dizzy spaces of the trackless air, And felt the ether crackle in his hair And his eyes prick with blood, and sweat Freeze on him, and his lips salt and wet, And knew not time, Nor day, nor night, Nor dark, nor light, In the sublime And fearful ecstasy of Sight. Aha, aha, a god am I, lly own dominion is the skySpace is my home. I I fly. But with me ride, Before, beside — „ The pioneers of air who died; Who toiled and counted not the cost. Who dared and daring all were lost; Who fighting failed, and 30 returned All broken to the sod they spurned, A aery conflagration hurled In blazing wreckage down the world Who dreamed and dared immortal things, And died that man might have his wings. Auckland. —ISABEL M. CLTJ2TT,