Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/204

 Duncan Campbell Scott

One of Canada s greater poets. Author of The Magic House and Other Poems In the Village of Viger Labour and the* Angel New World Lyrics and Ballads John Graves Simcoe Via Borealis Lundy s Lane and Other Poems etc. Born in Ottawa, Canada, August 2nd, 1862. Educated in the public schools of his native city, and at Stanstead Wesleyan Academy. His father was the late Rev. William Scott of the Methodist ministry. In 1880 entered the Canadian Civil Service at Ottawa, in the Department of Indian Affairs, and is noiv Deputy Superintendent General! \

TO A CANADIAN AVIATOR. Who Died for his Country in Prance

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��OSSED like a falcon from the hunter s wrist A sweeping plunge, a sudden shattering noise, And thou hast dared, with a long spiral twist, The elastic stairway to the rising sun. Peril below thee and above, peril Within thy car; but peril cannot daunt Thy peerless heart : gathering wing and poise, Thy plane transfigured, and thy motor-chant Subdued to a whisper then a silence,- And thou art but a disembodied venture In the void.

But Death, who has learned to fly, Still matchless when his work is to be done, Met thee between the armies and the sun; Thy speck of shadow faltered in the sky ; Then thy dead engine and thy broken wings Drooped through the arc and passed in fire, A wreath of smoke a breathless exhalation.

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