Duncan Campbell Scott (Дункан Кэмпбелл Скотт)
To a Canadian Aviator Who Died for his Country in France
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 Subduéd 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. But ere that came a vision sealed thine eyes, Lulling thy senses with oblivion; And from its sliding station in the skies Thy dauntless soul upward in circles soared To the sublime and purest radiance whence it sprang. In all their eyries, eagles shall mourn thy fate, And leaving on the lonely crags and scaurs Their unprotected young, shall congregate High in the tenuous heaven and anger the sun With screams, and with a wild audacity Dare all the battle danger of thy flight; Till weary with combat one shall desert the light, Fall like a bolt of thunder and check his fall On the high ledge, smoky with mist and cloud, Where his neglected eaglets shriek aloud, And drawing the film across his sovereign sight Shall dream of thy swift soul immortal Mounting in circles, faithful beyond death.
Duncan Campbell Scott’s other poems:
- The Voice and the Dusk
- Rapids at Night
- The Sea by the Wood
- At William Maclennan’s Grave
- In the Country Churchyard
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