  Higher than tinselled heaven, Lower than angels dare, Loop to the fray, swoop on their prey, The Killers of the Air. We scorned the Galilean, We mocked at Kingdom-Come: The old gods knew our pÆan— Our dawn-loud engine-hum: The old red gods of slaughter, The gods before the Jew! We heard their cruel laughter, Shrill round us, as we flew: When, deaf to earth and pity, Blind to the guns beneath, We loosed upon the city Our downward-plunging death. The Sun-God watched our flighting; No Christian priest could tame Our deathly stuttered fighting:— The whirled drum, spitting flame; The roar, of blades behind her; The banking plane up-tossed; The swerve that sought to blind her; Masked faces, glimpsed and lost; The joy-stick wrenched to guide her; The swift and saving zoom, What time the shape beside her Went spinning to its doom. No angel-wings might follow Where, poised behind the fray, We spied our Lord Apollo Stoop down to mark his prey— The hidden counter-forces; The guns upon the road; The tethered transport-horses, Stampeding, as we showed— Dun hawks of death, loud-roaring— A moment to their eyes: And slew; and passed far-soaring; And dwindled up the skies. But e’en Apollo’s pinions Had faltered where we ran, Low through his veiled dominions, To lead the charging van! The tree-tops slathered under; The Red-Steel Killers knew, Hard overhead, the thunder And backwash of her screw; The blurred clouds raced above her; The blurred fields streaked below, Where waited, crouched to cover, The foremost of our foe; Banking, we saw his furrows Leap at us, open wide: Hell-raked the man-packed burrows; And crashed—and crashing, died. It heard the song of the Dead in Air, as It huddled against the gate; And once again the Eye peered down—red-rimmed with scorn and hate For the shameless soul of the nameless one who had neither foe nor mate. And Eye was shut. But NakÉd Truth bent down to mock the Thing:— “Thou hast heard the Song of the Red-edged Steel, and the Song of the Crashing Wing: Shall the word of a black-coat priest avail at Valhalla’s harvesting? Shalt thou pass free to the Seven Halls—whose life in shame was sped?” And Truth was dumb. But the brooding word still echoed overhead, As roaring down the void outburst the last loud song of the dead. |
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