You would think the fury of aerial bombardment
Would rouse God to relent; the infinite spaces
Are still silent. He looks on shock-pried faces.
History, even, does not know what is meant.
You would feel that after so many centuries
God would give man to repent; yet he can kill
As Cain could, but with multitudinous will,
No farther advanced than in his ancient furies
Was man made stupid to see his own stupidity?
Is God by definition indifferent, beyond us all?
Is the eternal truth man's fighting soul
Wherein the Beast ravens in its own avidity?
Of Van Wettering I speak, and Averill,
Names on a list, whose faces I do not recall
But they are gone to early death, who late in school
Distinguished the belt feed lever from the belt holding pawl.
The Fury of Aerial Bombardment by Richard Eberhart • 6 poems by Richard EberhartEdit
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Richard Ghormley Eberhart was born April 5, 1904, Austin, Minnesota. He served in the Navy during WWII. He went to University of Minnesota, got his B.A. at Dartmouth College in 1926, went to and graduated from St. John's College, Cambridge University in 1929, he received his M.A. there in 1933, and he also went to and graduated from Harvard University. He was a professor at Dartmouth College from 1956 to 1970.
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By Richard Eberhart, © 1943, All rights reserved.
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Editor notes
In his collection of essays "Of Poetry and Poets," Eberhart said that he wrote "The Fury of Aerial Bombardment" in 1944 while, as a Navy officer, teaching aerial free gunnery; that too often names of his students turned up on the death lists; and that this depressed him so much that, feeling acutely the ruthlessness and senselessness of war, he wrote the first three stanzas of the poem. It was probably a week or two later that, feeling something should be added, something quite removed from the passion of the first three stanzas, he composed the final stanza. This, he wrote, it is said, in relation to the others made the poem particularly modern and, if he had not added it, he would probably never have published the poem. "This is an example of a certain fortuitous quality determining the fate of a poem."
From reader "waziegler"
- Thank you for the additional information which as been used to update the poem notes.
Jim
Oldpoetry Team The last stanza
In his collection of essays "Of Poetry and Poets," Eberhart said that he wrote "The Fury of Aerial Bombardment" in 1944 while, as a Navy officer, teaching aerial free gunnery; that too often names of his students turned up on the death lists; and that this depressed him so much that, feeling acutely the ruthlessness and senselessness of war, he wrote the first three stanzas of the poem. It was probably a week or two later that, feeling something should be added, something quite removed from the passion of the first three stanzas, he composed the final stanza. This, he wrote, it is said, in relation to the others made the poem particularly modern and, if he had not added it, he would probably never have published the poem. "This is an example of a certain fortuitous quality determining the fate of a poem."Final Stanza
From guest Steven Umentum (contact)
Van Wettering and Averill are names of deceased young men that Eberhart probably read on a list of soldiers who died during the war (WWII). Eberhart feels slightly guilty since he himself was an aerial gunnery instructor during the summer of 1944 and perhaps trained these two young men who lost their livesVan Wettering
From guest R. Edward VanWettering (contact)
As a Van Wettering, just curious if any light can be shed on this individualGreat point
From guest lovely me (contact)
The poem shows many aspects of war and gods influence so i choose your poem to read for uil!!!!! Thanks be to you- The last line is only too obvious to someone who has fired an old fashioned machine gun. If you got the two mixed up you were likely to unload the weapon rather than fire it and you could end up being dead instead of the enemy.
- I really like the message in stanza two: Cain's actions are the same as our war actions today. The poet mentions some very interesting points, yet his inside knowledge of the key people (Van Wettering and Averill) throws the poem on a different track. The moral aspect with bibical allusions worked. The further defining of the moral by mentioning the "modern" counterpart people just took away from the established feel of the poem. Line 16 seems an odd collection of terms and images.
