Patriotic pieces from the Great War/The Eyes of War

THE EYES OF WAR

Permission of the author

Like a gauzy speck in the pearling dawn,
We drift through the silent skies,
Over No-Man's-Land, where the smoke balls spawn
And the deadly gases rise.
We mark the spot where the battery stands—
Where sappers toil in the trench-scarred height.
We map each mile of a hostile land,
Where millions writhe in battle-blight.

No silvery bugle to speed our flight,
Nor the flutter of banners gay;
Not a war steed's stamping for the fight,
As we rise at break of day.
Only the song of the wind in the planes—
A thrill that lives in the day-dawn's glow—
A shifting vision of country lanes,
That wave like ribbons below.

—Chart Pitt