Creeping out to the North and West, it hung in the skies alone awhile.
Then from over the brooding haze the roar of murmuring engines swelled,
And the men of the air looked down to us, a mile below their feet;
Down the wind they passed above, their course to the silver sun-track held,
And we looked back to the West again, and saw the English Fleet.
Over the curve of the rounded sea, in ordered lines as the ranks of Rome,
Over the far horizon steamed a power that held us dumb,—
Miles of racing lines of steel that flattened the sea to a field of foam,
Rolling deep to the wash they made,
We saw, to the threat of a German blade,