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.