The Poets & The War XXXIX

By Greta Briggs.
The War Illustrated, Volume 3, No. 66, Page 616, December 6, 1940.

He is so young and joyous, yet he bears
The fate of nations on his shoulders now.
His roaring Spitfire thunders up the sky;
To him the drone of engines seems a song.
He rides the cloud-pavilioned lists that lie
Between earth's surface and the evening star;
His feats of arms are such as men have not
Dared heretofore. His brief reports can vie
With all the ballads of those knights and kings
Whose deeds were red-hot news in Camelot.

He has a threefold England in his charge:
The old-world England we have loved so long,
And then the splendid England of today,
And finally, the England yet to be!
We pass him in the street – a knight who wears
Not golden spurs, perhaps, but shining wings.

– Daily Telegraph

nov1940

In Temple Gardens

One window left, for shuttered gloom Lies fast on many a folded eye. Yet still within my shadowed room The trees, the flowers, the open sky Lay healing hands upon a mind Of quietude by war bereft

Read more

dec1940

The Ally

I saw a gaunt shape walking in the snow When winter came. He lifted up his hand And said in accents of a king's command, Heil Hitler! Thousands round him bent them low, And did not rise again. Som

Read more