<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The Aerodrome</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">So</span> now the aerodrome goes up</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Upon my father's fields,</p><p class="line">And gone is all the golden crop</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And all the pleasant yields.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">They tear the trees up, branch and root,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">They kill the hedges green,</p><p class="line">As though some force, malign and brute,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Ravaged the peace serene.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">There where he used to sit and gaze</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">With blue and quiet eyes,</p><p class="line">Watching his comely cattle graze,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The walls begin to rise.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">What place for robin or for wren,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">For thrush and blackbird's call?</p><p class="line">Now there shall be but flying men</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Nor any bird at all.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">'Twas well he did not stay to know,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Defaced and all defiled</p><p class="line">The quiet fields of long ago,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Dear to him as a child.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">But when the tale was told to me</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">I felt such piercing pain,</p><p class="line">They tore my heart up with the tree</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">That will not leaf again.</p></div></body></html> · Great War