Explore "Stain not the Sky (Pro Patria)" by Henry Van Dyke on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Ye gods of battle, lords of fear, / Who work your iron will as well / As once ye did with sword and spear, / With rifled gun and rending shell, -- / Masters of sea and land, forbear / The fierce invasion of the inviolate air!
With patient daring man hath wrought / A hundred years for power to fly; / And will you make his winged thought / A hovering horror in the sky, / Where flocks of human eagles sail, / Dropping their bolts of death on hill and dale?