A CLOUDLESS day! with a keener line The ruins jut on the glintering blue, The gas gongs by the billets shine Like gold or wine, so trim and new. Sharp through the wreckage pries the gust, And down the roads where wheels have rolled Whirls the dry snow in powdery dust, And starlings muster ruffled with cold. The gunners profit by the light, The guns like surly bandogs bark; And towards Saint Jean in puffs of white The anti-aircraft find a mark. And now the sentries' whistles ply, For overhead with whirring drone An Albatros comes racing by, Immensely high, and one of our own From underneath to meet it mounts, And banks and spirals up, and straight The popping maxims' leaden founts Spurt fire, the Boche drops like a weight: A hundred feet he nose-dives, then He rights himself and scuds down sky Towards the German lines again, A great transparent dragon-fly. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BUDMOUTH DEARS by THOMAS HARDY SPRING'S WELCOME, FR. ALEXANDER AND CAMPASPE by JOHN LYLY THE VOYAGE by CAROLINE ATHERTON BRIGGS MASON THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON CITY LYRICS by NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS |