In Memory of May 1st 1945

a poem by Clara Sharland

Great Eagle, fold your wings awhile
And turn away your eyes;
In smoke and thunder, flame and blood
Your Best and Highest dies;
And all His happy Land,
His great emprise,
A shattered wreck of ugly ruin lies.

Great Eagle, flee a little while
To some far lonely height.
There shall you watch and wait . . .
Your land is sunk in the night:
All, all those cities bright
In ruins far and wide torment the night.

Oh Eagle, did you hear that shout,
That thundered triple roar?
Its clamorous echoes smote the earth
And rolled from shore to shore;
And all the glorious Dead,
Who fealty swore,
Received Him home; His earthly flight is o’er.

His flight, that made the nations shake,
And hearts and pulses leap,
Is over now. He rests. But we
Are sunk in…