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
