Guns! far and near <br />Quick, sudden, angry, <br />They startle the still street, <br />Upturned faces appear, <br />Doors open on darkness, <br />There is a hurrying of feet, <br />And whirled athwart gloom <br />White fingers of alarm <br />Point at last there <br />Where illumined and dumb <br />A shape suspended <br />Hovers, a demon of the starry air! <br />Strange and cold as a dream <br />Of sinister fancy, <br />It charms like a snake, <br />Poised deadly in the gleam, <br />While bright explosions <br />Leap up to it and break. <br />Is it terror you seek <br />To exult in? Know then <br />Hearts are here <br />That the plunging beak <br />Of night-winged murder <br />Strikes not with fear <br />So much as it strings <br />To a deep elation <br />And a quivering pride <br />That at last the hour brings <br />For them too the danger <br />Of those who died, <br />Of those who yet fight <br />Spending for each of us <br />Their glorious blood <br />In the foreign night. — <br />That now we are neared to them <br />Thank we God.<br /><br />Robert Laurence Binyon<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-zeppelin-2/
