Quote: Ernest Rhys

With the wings of a bird and the heart of a man he compass’d his flight,
And the cities and seas, as he flew, were like smoke at his feet.
He lived a great life while we slept, in the dark of the night,
And went home by the mariners’ road, down the stars’ empty street.

This piece is called “The New Icarus” and I encountered it in a little book called Icarus: An Anthology of the Poetry of Flight. This compilation was produced in 1938 by several cadets and one “R de la Bere,” as a collection of verse honoring flight, from all regions and times.

This was originally in Rhys’s “Rhymes for Everyman.” The meter is interesting and skips right along; I see dactyls, but anyone else have a more detailed scansion?