Page:More songs by the fighting men, soldier poets, second series, 1917.djvu/20

 PAUL BEWSHER

The Dawn Patrol

OMETIMES I fly at dawn above the sea,

Where, underneath, the restless waters flow—

Silver, and cold, and slow.

Dim in the east there burns a new-born sun,

Whose rosy gleams along the ripples run,

Save where the mist droops low,

Hiding the level loneliness from me.

And now appears beneath the milk-white haze

A little fleet of anchored ships, which lie

In clustered company,

And seem as they are yet fast bound by sleep,

Although the day has long begun to peep,

With red-inflamèd eye,

Along the still, deserted ocean ways.

The fresh, cold wind of dawn blows on my face

As in the sun's raw heart I swiftly fly,

And watch the seas glide by. 16