Morris Gilbert

YOU laughed and said, “A zut!”—and in a trice

Lifted Céleste in circles twice or thrice

Above the hangar-roof—and then sped on

And up, and shot away—and so were gone.

And when they found you like a wasp beside

The carcass of the Luftschiff, still you cried,

“A zut, mes braves!” and laughed—and then you died….

It may be best you came to ground that way;

For who knows where your vivid careless play

Of spirit and bravado might have led?

Some night you might have kept straight on instead,

And then at dawn perhaps, with some surprise,

Might have beheld the roofs of Paradise

Perched like Montmartre upon a little hill—

Speckless and gabled, fresh, and very still.

And you would twist and duck and hover down,

And circle round the walls above the town,

With saints and martyrs standing over-awed

To see you ’planing on the winds of God.

Perhaps you might come down at twelve o’clock

To puff a caporal and sip a bock.