"Ode to the Eighth"
by Mark Brotherton.
The missions brought about adulthood,
experiences of a Lifetime,
the promise of death
You answered her call the mistress
in red, white and blue Flew on her
issued wings, flew on her breath
Your comrades died in violet skies of
aluminum and steel. You drank too
much and grew old too soon
You came to the mother country to
destroy the fatherland. The tales
have been told a thousand
and one times
But the storytellers are leaving us and
you're in line In a briefing room, of the
mission in which no one returns
At the end of a life to which too much
is owed, But has she paid her debt,
the mistress in red, white and blue
Would you go again I ask, knowing now
what you know? Should you have gone
then, may be the best question
Do you remember? Of course you do
The flights of fury,
the ride through hell
The return to the green and yellow
carpet and the last bell you the
ones, the carrier of the torch
You were the children who rose in
the early mist to carry forth the
good fight. I walk those worn
altars of East Anglia now
Made of concrete, abused by the
plow. Each year they go little by
little back into this ancient land
Rarely yielding the stories of the
time in your hand. Then in events
marked by a calendar
throughout she calls
Again, that mistress in red, white and blue
Reminding you that time is passing,
the years left are few
You come again to return to the fields and
walk among the ruins to assure yourself
it was you the warrior of years ago
The young offerings to appease the evil
and to destroy its wicked ways children
growing into the main players on
history's biggest aerial stage
To rise in the English mist and slay the
vermin of far away and hopefully return
to rise again on another day
You never turned back; you went on
without hate, And history will see
this as the ode to the Eighth.
by Mark Brotherton.
The missions brought about adulthood,
experiences of a Lifetime,
the promise of death
You answered her call the mistress
in red, white and blue Flew on her
issued wings, flew on her breath
Your comrades died in violet skies of
aluminum and steel. You drank too
much and grew old too soon
You came to the mother country to
destroy the fatherland. The tales
have been told a thousand
and one times
But the storytellers are leaving us and
you're in line In a briefing room, of the
mission in which no one returns
At the end of a life to which too much
is owed, But has she paid her debt,
the mistress in red, white and blue
Would you go again I ask, knowing now
what you know? Should you have gone
then, may be the best question
Do you remember? Of course you do
The flights of fury,
the ride through hell
The return to the green and yellow
carpet and the last bell you the
ones, the carrier of the torch
You were the children who rose in
the early mist to carry forth the
good fight. I walk those worn
altars of East Anglia now
Made of concrete, abused by the
plow. Each year they go little by
little back into this ancient land
Rarely yielding the stories of the
time in your hand. Then in events
marked by a calendar
throughout she calls
Again, that mistress in red, white and blue
Reminding you that time is passing,
the years left are few
You come again to return to the fields and
walk among the ruins to assure yourself
it was you the warrior of years ago
The young offerings to appease the evil
and to destroy its wicked ways children
growing into the main players on
history's biggest aerial stage
To rise in the English mist and slay the
vermin of far away and hopefully return
to rise again on another day
You never turned back; you went on
without hate, And history will see
this as the ode to the Eighth.
