Who shall make manifest again the courage of Lionheart?
who will make their way to
the cockpit of the Hurricane?
who shall glance upward at adversarial skies
abuzz with intruders and not blanch?
A radio’s circumspect utterance that
there might be something terribly amiss
at odds with Summer’s timeless evocation
reassuring approbation of cider in the jar
and the sound of willow on leather;
In such moments who do we expect
to step up to the mark?
to re-enact that which was all too bloodily
enacted on long ago days under different skies,
Agincourt, Ypres, Mafeking, Trafalgar, Waterloo;
those days have long burdened us to be this way,
coffin-borned Te Deums that ensure it falls
to Summer to offer up its stage whereon we,
we all get to play our part:
tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,
wherever tyranny and liberty rendezvous,
who shall make manifest again the courage of Lionheart?
who will make their way to
the cockpit of the Hurricane?
A fine evocation of the bravery of British airmen during ”their finest hour” in the Battle of Britain.
It was a time that marked the bravery of the world….I see from the last comment that the word ‘British’ is used….all of the few were not British…..but held their values…despite their difference in the future.