‘Top left an angel’ by R.S. Thomas

 Top left an angel
 hovering. Top right the attendance
 of a star. From both
 bottom corners devils
 look up, relishing
 in prospect a divine
 meal. How old at the centre
 the child's face gazing
 into love's too human
 face, like one prepared
 for it to have its way
 and continue smiling?
 

 
 By R. S. Thomas
 from Counterpoint 2. Incarnation (1990) 

Moorland by R. S. Thomas

It is beautiful and still;

the air rarified

as the interior of a cathedral

 

expecting a presence. It is where, also,

the harrier occurs,

materialising from nothing, snow –

 

soft, but with claws of fire,

quartering the bare earth

for the prey that escapes it;

 

hovering over the incipent

scream, here a moment, then

not here, like my belief in God.

 

by R. S. Thomas

from Experimenting with an Amen (1986)

High Flight (An Airman’s Ecstacy) by John Gillespie Magee Jr

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of; wheeled and sored and swung

High in the sun-lit silence. Hovering there

I’ve chased the shouting wing along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air;

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,

Where never lark nor even eagle flew;

And while, with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

 

by John Gillespie Magee Jr (1922-1941)