A Happy New Year poem

December 31, 1943
Happy New Year!
Vict’ry bells a-pealing, people?
Lights on over all the world?
Yes, ‘twill happen, folk, if we pull –
Pull our weight till Hitler’s hurled
Down a very slipp’ry slope,
“V” for victory, we hope.
Not in blackouts shall we grope;
Union Jacks shall be unfurled.
Rise! O little star of hope….
Help is, then, O God, to cope
Not with hangmen and their rope,
But the problems of the world.
Victory! But in Thy log’s
Writ “There are the underdogs” –
Poland, Holland, Belgium, Greece is.
Make their plight your New Year thesis,
Loving, giving; that true, peace is,
First, though, fight and end all war
Happy 1944!
(Liverpool Echo: December 31, 1943: Signed by “A.W.”)