Battle of Britain poetry.

[Sailor.]

What did we earth-bound make of it? A tangle
Of vapour trails, a vertiginously high
Swarming of midges, at most a fiery apgel
Hurled out of heaven, was all we could descry.

How could we know the agony and pride
That scrawled those fading signatures up there,
And the cool expertise of them who died
Or lived through that delirium of the air

Grounded on history now, we re-enact
Such lives, such deaths. Time, laughing out of court
The newspaper heroics and the faked
Statistics, leaves us only to record.

What was, what might have been fighter and bomber
The tilting sky, tense moves and counterings;
Those who outlived that legendary summer;
Those who went down, it's sunlight on their wings.

And you, unborn then, what will you make of it-
This shadow-play of battles long ago?
Be sure of this: they pushed to the uttermost limit
Their luck, skill, nerve.And they were young like you.

--------------------

Mischievous, laughing boys, who grew
To quick manhood to be 'The Few'
Who flew above all human call
Through Summer's height to Autumn's fall,
Infring'd the sanctity of space
In freedom's name-and died in grace;
Falling like leaves upon the Weald
To russet-spot on English field,
Their brief, gay, valiant season spent
For us. Our task, their monument,
Nature herself has taken o'er
And has decreed for evermore,
'The Few' shall be remembered by
White chalk marks in a summer sky



One of these was written by a Poet Laureate, the other by anon. Who wrote wot and which do you like best?