AIR RAID
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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.
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Longmoor, 1948