Page:Patriotic pieces from the Great War, Jones, 1918.djvu/199

Rh TO A CANADIAN AVIATOR WHO DIED FOR HIS COUNTRY IN FRANCE

Permission of the author and Scribner's Magazine, New York

Tossed 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 murmur—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.

But ere that vision sealed thine eyes,

Lulling thy senses with oblivion;

And from its sliding station in the skies

Thy dauntless soul upward in circles soared