Into the wide, unmeasured, lonely skies
Beyond this dark, confining world he winds
To keep his watch; on moon-tipped wings he flies
O'er cliffs of cloud, and nature's star-lit climes
Above this England, gashed with iron scars,
And o'er the sea with white-capped shining waves,
He passes ramparts, washed with foam of stars,
And in curls of cloudlets loose he laves
To be up there, amidst that heavenly band,
It is his duty, and his life, his boon;
No hand can hold him to the steadfast land
When duty calls, through rays of a Bomber's Moon
When he returns, that golden host will ring,
And he'll be with his comrades, flying wing to wing.
Written by my mother in 1943 when she was 17. She had already met my father, who had joined the Royal Air Force. The one and only poem she has ever written, she showed it to me for the first time last weekend when I went to see them and caught a nasty stomach bug.