By Don Blanding
They failed; those man-made wings!
(Icarus, in Greek legend, the son of Daedalus.
My gratitude to Frank Dutko, who sent me a copy of his Class 43-D book from Enid Army Flying School, Enid Oklahoma, from which I found the above.
Then down the graying sky –
A living meteor fell with cruel speed.
A cry, part fear, but greater part, farewell to all dear things,
Joined with the screaming of wind-tortured wings;
Farewell to clouds and clear high spaces of the blue;
Farewell to sunlight: gallant, daring flight.
He knew the hurt of treachery when trusted pinions turned
the futile webs of tattered gauze.
He learned in those swift seconds all that man may hope to know,
Of grandeau and of sorrow. This I feel is so,
That ere death’s anesthesia blurred away
All consciousness of hope, regret, dismay.
He looked into his heart and visioned there
Only thankfulness for answered prayer
That as a crusader of the blue unconquered sky
Having so bravely lived, so might he bravely die.
Escaping from Crete by flying with wings made by Daedalus,
Icarus flew so high that the sun's heat melted the wax by which
his wings were fastened, and he fell to his death in the sea.)
