CANADIAN SINGERS AND THEIR SONGS
To the Aviators Of Leaside and Armour Heights
______
All summer long, your crowding planes
Shadowed the fields where droned the bee,
Or drowned the roar of rushing trains,
With engines purring stentorously.
______
Banked white against a mottled sky,
Or lifted to the noonday blaze;
Singly, or like wild geese on high,
All day ye met our marvelling gaze.
______
Airy as tinted dragon-flies,
One with the light and drifting wind;
So did your whirring shapes arise,
And leave the grovelling Earth behind.
______
Across deep lakes of molten gold
Where sunset's colours flushed and paled;—
Past purple peaks where angels fold
Their wings, your venturous pilots sailed!
______
And cried to us:—"Look up! Look up!
Ye blinded moles that haunt the shade—
Gaze on the Heavens' jewelled cup,
And praise the wonders God hath made!"
______
Cleavers of space, ye fear no foe,
The huge cloud-dragons ye out-race:
Or float serene o’er Earth below,
Like falcons poised in pride of place
______
Dismays of timid souls ye shame—
Your souls of fire no perils shun;
Lo! ye, like moths that dare the flame,
Would beard the Angel in the sun!
James B. Dollard
35
