CURLY:- We called her Tiny', And we loved her like anything. We waltzed her about For a couple of years. Showing her paces And bending the ears of the bigwigs. "Not much future on the military side, But we could run a hell of an airline..." I was Third Officer now, A qualified pilot with a larger size in hats Twenty-five, twenty-six odd, And finding the world an excellent place...
There now, I've not introduced myself... McLeod, George McLeod... Flight Lieutenant, Royal Air Force, Late of the Imperial Airship Service... But everyone calls me 'Curly'... And Curly likes to fly...
I wanna fly... I wanna fly... I wanna fly... I wanna fly... I wanna fly... I wanna fly...
Up towards the clouds Of a cold, grey autumn, 'Til we're bumping our heads On their dull blue bellies. Then we're suddenly lost In a featureless, white fog, No sense of motion. Upwards 'till the light turns gold And the veils of mist rip back, And she leaps like a breaching whale Into a perfect dome of brilliant blue Full of dazzling light... Up,'till the clouds below us Are a level plain of radiant white With a hundred mile horizon...
And I'm flying a cloud; No cakewalk, I can tell you. Damn tricky work, But I'm lighter than air, And I'm part of the sky...
And we're slow enough To watch the birth of a cloud. Budding and swelling From a tiny shred of vapour 'Til it billows and boils up, Towering high above us: A glowing mountain in our path...
As hard-edged, clean and solid As a slice of the Alps, Its blinding white snow-peaks Picked out in rose-pink. Chasms and precipices Shaded in luminous pearl. The ship now dwarfed By a vast and pure perfection, And only as we ram the cliff Does the dream dissolve In a grubby, white fog... How shall I put this? Clouds are rather good...
You can't compare this with the thrusting rush Of the hard little'plane. Only stays up there by sheer brute force, Aggressive little beast No time to look around; No way to stretch your legs; Can't call that flying. You just point it and go...
Not like us. We fly by the favour of every cold front And each ridge of high pressure. We need the indulgence Of each anti-cyclone; Our ships are too fragile To bully the weather. Each voyage is an intimate dialogue With the wind and the sun, A delicate negotiation. Can't quite say why this should be A better arrangement, But, twisting my arm, I would say it's a matter of grace. A dirigible is a graceful idea And a graceful thing, And it flies by the grace of the sky...
And, when we put her back in her box, I'd feel heavy, As if I was chained down to the grass: Two dimensional. Like a photo, flat on a table. And everything looked square And angular. After Tiny, everything seemed antique; Cars and buildings All looked like period stuff. Yes, in that Year of Grace 1921, She looked like something From another planet...