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Canadian Singers and Their Songs/James B. Dollard

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Canadian Singers and Their Songs (1919)
edited by Edward S. Caswell
To The Aviators of Leaside and Armour Heights by James B. Dollard
James B. Dollard3036309Canadian Singers and Their Songs — To The Aviators of Leaside and Armour Heights1919Edward S. Caswell


JAMES B. DOLLARD

AUTHOR OF "IRISH MIST AND SUNSHINE," "COLLECTED POEMS OF
FATHER DOLLARD," "IRISH LYRICS AND BALLADS," ETC.

To the Aviators Of Leaside and Armour Heights

______

All summer long, your crowding planes
Shadowed the fields where droned the bee,
Or drowned the roar of rushing trains,
With engines purring stentorously.

______


Banked white against a mottled sky,
Or lifted to the noonday blaze;
Singly, or like wild geese on high,
All day ye met our marvelling gaze.

______


Airy as tinted dragon-flies,
One with the light and drifting wind;
So did your whirring shapes arise,
And leave the grovelling Earth behind.

______


Across deep lakes of molten gold
Where sunset's colours flushed and paled;—
Past purple peaks where angels fold
Their wings, your venturous pilots sailed!

______


And cried to us:—"Look up! Look up!
Ye blinded moles that haunt the shade—
Gaze on the Heavens' jewelled cup,
And praise the wonders God hath made!"

______


Cleavers of space, ye fear no foe,
The huge cloud-dragons ye out-race:
Or float serene o’er Earth below,
Like falcons poised in pride of place

______


Dismays of timid souls ye shame—
Your souls of fire no perils shun;
Lo! ye, like moths that dare the flame,
Would beard the Angel in the sun!

James B. Dollard