The Quiet Hour

The Quiet Hour written by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

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 Absorbing the clear green tranquillity
 Through the last hour before his evening flight
 In the lush verdure by the ruined mill,
 Tranced in a spell of viridescent light
 That with a solace of calm lucency
 Suffuses all his being, musingly
 The airman-angler lingers by the still
 Water whereon his quill
 Poises unstirring, while the quiet and cool
 Of the bough-shadowed and unruffled pool
 Instil him with the hardihood to dare
 The hazard of the coming night
 When he must venture overseas
 And recklessly
 Engage the enemy
 At eagle height
 On wings that zoom and soar
 And dive and wheel,
 While all about him through the air
 Shells scream and tracer bullets streak and flare
 In arabesques of coloured light;
 And through the nightmare fantasy
 Putt-putting machine-guns pour
 Wing-riddling burst about his plane.
 
 The hour of quiet ends; and now again
 He winds his line upon the clicking reel,
 His spirit tempered in tranquillity
 And heart endued
 With resolution by the solitude,
 And speeds back to the drome and eagerly
 Climbs to the cockpit, and unblenchingly
 Takes off into the night with nerves of steel.

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