The Airman

[Scott]

From Poems of the Great War, New York: MacMillan, 1916

THE AIRMAN

WILD wind, and drear, beneath the pale stars blowing,
Whom do you hunt to-night ?
Out of the west into the storm-cloud glowing
A biplane wings her flight.

In the grey day-dawn was there no returning,
No homewards for the dead : —
Only a broken wing, a biplane burning,
A shattered airship shed !

O Nation proud, on whose red altar gladly
One more young Life is laid,
Scatter the news — flutter the posters madly — "
Triumph of British raid !"

What of the Cross they brought to her — his
Mother?
Wanly her dumb lips smiled,
Then whispered: "Give back him — I had no
other —
My Son — my only child."

— Gregg Goddard.