Cross Roads

A PRAYER FOR OUR BOYS RETURNING

     God, bring them back just as they went away;
        A little wiser, maybe, but unchanged
     In all the vital things—let them today
        Take up the lives that war has disarranged.
     Let them renew the youth they laid aside
        To fight their battles in the world of men,
     God, bring to life their little dreams that died,
        And build their altars new again, and then—

     Give them the vivid youth that they have sought for
        Through bloody mists on bloody fields of strife;
     Show them the gallant truth that they have fought
           for;
        Show them, anew, the better things of life.
     God of the hosts, blot out the months of pain—
     And let them have their boyhood back again.
                                          AMEN.