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