AIR RAID    

With breathless bewilderment and awe

Stood watchers, petrified, with bated breath,

Perceiving beauty born of slaughter,

The grim announcer of impending death.

            Their eyes were roving, sleep-endowed,

            From scarlet flame to steep-banked cloud,

            Were seeking, probing, ceaselessly

            For what they were afraid to miss

            And even more afraid to see.

            Then each man’s heart was filled with dread;

            That hornet-drone was overhead,

            And suddenly the atmosphere

            Was pregnant with the full-blown seed

            Of unpremeditated fear.

The amber glow in stealthy silence

Arose relentlessly with fearful might,

Imbued the air with ghostly beauty

Dissolving softly into patient night.

Longmoor, 1948

This poem was regarded by Stella Blend as a fairly moderate effort, with one exception.  She considered the last line redeemed the entire poem by its imagery.

I thought her judgement was pretty harsh on the whole, but was delighted with her approval of the last line, and have to say that it has always pleased me.