Quote: Maurice Baring

Bright gifts and festal crowns to him they bore.
The brave, the wise, the mighty and the fair
Acclaimed him lord of the unconquered air.
But he who, thanks to more than mortal lore,
The albatross, the eagle could outsoar
Now stripped of his large wings, and unaware
Of the loud jubilee, in mute despair,
Withdrew to weep alone on Cumae’s shore.

To one who asked he spoke: “My son to-day
Was drowned; he flew too near the burning ray,
That struck his wings, and from the empty sky
He was hurled headlong to the envying sea:
He nevermore shall climb the skies with me,
And I no more shall have the heart to fly.”

This piece is called “Daedalus,” 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.

Like many of the authors in Icarus, I have never heard of Baring, and he does not seem very well-known; consequently, like most of the other pieces I’m reproducing here, this appears to be the first time it’s reached the Internet. I’m pleased to be able to introduce original material to the all-seeing eye of Google, particularly poems as lovely as these.