• Lie in the dark and listen


Lie in the dark and listen
It's clear tonight so they're flying high
Hundreds of them, thousands perhaps
Riding the icy, moonlit sky
Men, machinery, bombs and maps
Altimeters and guns and charts
Coffee, sandwiches, fleece-lined boots
Bones and muscle and minds and hearts
English saplings with English roots
Deep in the earth they've left below
Lie in the dark and let them go
Lie in the dark and listen.

Noel Coward

1 comment:

  1. Until the early hours this morning I had not heard this poem. It was on a Debutant's coming out card on the Antique's Road Show, how poignant a choice as her Deb year was the same as the Battle of Britain

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