Lockheed Hudson (1938)

North American AT-6 (1938)

The boundary lamps were yellow blurs

  Against the winter night

  And I had checked the last ship in

  And snapped the office light,

  And paused a while to let the ghosts

  Of bygone days and men

  Roam down the skies of

auld lang syne

  As one will now and then ...

  When fancy sent me company,

  A red cheeked lad to stand

  With questions gleaming in his eyes,

  A model in his hand.

  He may have been your boy or mine,

  I could not clearly see,

  But there was no mistaking how

  His eyes were questing me.

  For answers which all sons must have

  Who build their toys in play

  But pow'r them with valiant dreams

  And fly them far away;

  So down I sat with him beside

  There in the dim lit shed

  And with the ghosts of better men

  To check on me, I said:

  "I cannot tell you, sonny boy,

  The future of this art,

  But one thing I can show you, lad,

  An old time pilot's heart;

And you may judge what flight may give

  Or hold in store for you

  By knowing how true pilots feel

  About the work they do;

  And only he who dedicates

  His life to some ideal

  Becomes as one with what he dreams

  His future will reveal.

  Not one of us whose wings are dust

  Would call his bargain in,

  Not one of us would welsh his part

  To save his bloomin' skin,

  Not one would wish to walk again

  Unless allowed to throw

  His heart into the thing he loved

  And go as he would go:

  Not one would change for

gold or pow'r

  Nor fun nor love nor fame

  The part he played and price he paid

  In making good the game.

  And of the living ... none, not one

  Regrets the scars he bears,

  The sheer uncertainty of plans,

  The poverty he shares,

  Remitted price for one mistake

  That checks a bright career,

  The shattered hopes, the scant rewards,

  The future never clear:

And of the living ... none, not one

  Who truly loves the sky

  Would trade a hundred

earth bound hours

  For one that he could fly.

  If that sleek model in your hand

  Which you have brought to me

  Most represents the thing you love,

  The thing you want to be,

  Then you will fill your curly head

  With knowledge, fact and lore,

  For there is no short cut which leads

  To aviation's door;

  And only those whose zeal is proved

  By patient toil and will

  Shall ever have a part to play

  Or have a place to fill."

  And suddenly the lad was gone

  On wings I could not hear,

  But from afar off came his voice

  In studied tones and clear,

  A prophet's message simply told

  For this is what he said,

  And why his hand will someday lead

  Formations overhead,

  "Who wants to fly has got to know:

  Now two times two is four:

  I got to learn the first things first!"

  ... I closed the hangar door.

Gill Robb Wilson (1938)

(Thanks to Pat Bledsoe for submitting this poem)