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,

Within thy car; but peril cannot

Thy peerless heart: gathering wing and poise,

Thy plane transfigured, and thy

Subduéd to a whisper — then a silence, —And thou art but a disembodied

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

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

Thy dauntless soul upward in circles

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

Their unprotected young, shall

High in the tenuous heaven and anger the

With screams, and with a wild

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

On the high ledge, smoky with mist and cloud,

Where his neglected eaglets shriek aloud,

And drawing the film across his sovereign

Shall dream of thy swift soul

Mounting in circles, faithful beyond death.

Composition date is unknown - the above date represents the first publication date.

Form: irregularly rhyming.