Poem by Jean Blewett

What Time the Morning Stars Arise

ABOVE him spreads the purple sky,
  Beneath him spreads the ether sea,
And everywhere about him lie
  Dim ports of space, and mystery.

Ho, lonely Admiral of the Fleet!
  What of the night? What of the night?
'Methinks I hear,' he says, 'the beat
  Of great wings rising for the flight.'

Ho, Admiral neighbouring with the stars
  Above the old world's stress and din!
With Jupiter and lordly Mars–
  'Ah, yonder sweeps a Zeppelin!

'A bird with menace in its breath,
  A thing of peril, spoil and strife,
The little children done to death,
  The helpless old bereft of life.

'The moan of stricken motherhood,
  The cowardice beyond our ken,
The cruelty that fires the blood,
  And shocks the souls of honest men.

'These call for vengeance–mine the chase.'
  He guides his craft–elate and strong.
Up, up, through purple seas of space,
  While in his heart there grows a song.

'Ho, little ship of mine that soars
  Twixt earth and sky, be ours to-day
To free our harassed seas and shores
  Of yonder evil bird of prey!'

The gallant venture is his own,
  No friend to caution, pray, or aid,
But strong is he who fights alone,
  Of loss and failure unafraid.

He rises higher, higher still,
  Till poised above the startled foe–
It is a fight to stir and thrill
  And set the dullest breast aglow.

Old Britain hath her battles won
  On fields that are a nation's pride,
And oh the deeds of daring done
  Upon her waters deep and wide!

But warfare waged on solid land,
  Or on the sea, can scarce compare
With this engagement, fierce, yet grand,
  This duel to the death in air.

He wins! he wins in sea of space!
  Why prate we now of other wars
Since he has won his name and place
  By deathless valour 'mong the stars?

No more that Zeppelin will mock,
  No more will sound her song of hate;
With bursting bomb, and fire, and shock,
  She hurtles downward to her fate.

A touch of rose in eastern skies,
  A little breeze that calls and sings,
Look yonder where our hero flies,
  Like homing bird on eager wings.

He sees the white mists softly curl,
  He sees the moon drift pale and wan,
Sees Venus climb the stairs of pearl
  To hold her court of Love at dawn. 

1. The Passage
2. Margaret
3. For He Was Scotch, and So Was She
4. At Quebec
5. Chore Time

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