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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41944 ***
+
+Transcriber's note:
+    Spelling and punctuation inconsistencies, mainly quotes that
+    had not been closed, have been harmonized. Italic text has
+    been marked with _underscores_.
+
+
+
+
+ON PATROL
+
+
+
+
+    ON PATROL
+
+    BY
+    KLAXON
+    AUTHOR OF 'H. M. S. ----'
+
+
+    William Blackwood and Sons
+    Edinburgh and London
+    1919
+
+
+
+
+_TO D. V. B._
+
+
+    They watch us leaving harbour for the greatest game of all,
+      And wonder if we're coming back across the greedy sea;
+    They never know the fighting thrill or high adventure's call--
+      I rather think the women folk are better men than we.
+    But I suspect they say of us as out to sea we go,
+      In all our panoply of pride from Orkney to the Nore:
+    "It keeps them quiet, we suppose--they like the work, we know--
+      And soon perhaps they'll tire and play some safer game than War."
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                  PAGE
+
+    TO----                           1
+
+    OLD WOMEN                        5
+
+    CHIN UP                          9
+
+    "... THAT HAVE NO DOUBTS"       15
+
+    SKY SIGNS                       21
+
+    AN ENTENTE                      27
+
+    A BATTLE-PRAYER                 33
+
+        SUBMARINES                  35
+
+        THE BATTLE-FLEET            36
+
+        DESTROYERS                  37
+
+    AN ADMINISTRATIVE VICTORY       39
+
+    A NIGHTMARE                     49
+
+    RELEASED                        57
+
+    REGULUS                         63
+
+    A NORTH SEA NOTE                67
+
+    SOMETHING WRONG                 73
+
+    WE                              77
+
+    THE SAILOR'S VIEW               83
+
+    STONEWALL JACKSON               89
+
+    WET SHIPS                       93
+
+    THAT BLINKIN' CAT               99
+
+    1797                           105
+
+    AFTER THE WAR                  109
+
+    LOW VISIBILITY                 117
+
+    HANG ON                        123
+
+    TO FRITZ                       129
+
+    TO THE SCOTTISH REGIMENTS      135
+
+    PRIVILEGED                     141
+
+    "OUR ANNUAL"                   147
+
+    MASCOTS                        151
+
+    A HYMN OF DISGUST              157
+
+    A TRINITY                      165
+
+    IN THE MORNING                 173
+
+    IN FORTY WEST                  179
+
+    A RING AXIOM                   183
+
+    THE QUARTERMASTER              187
+
+    IN THE BARRED ZONE             193
+
+    WHO CARES?                     199
+
+    THE UNCHANGING SEX             203
+
+    LOOKING AFT                    209
+
+    A MAXIM                        215
+
+    THE CRISIS                     219
+
+    A SEA CHANTY                   223
+
+    A.D. 400                       229
+
+    OVERDUE                        233
+
+
+
+
+TO----
+
+
+
+
+TO----.
+
+
+    He went to sea on the long patrol,
+    Away to the East from the Corton Shoal,
+        But now he's overdue.
+    He signalled me as he bore away
+    (A flickering lamp through leaping spray,
+    And darkness then till judgment day),
+        "So long! Good luck to you!"
+
+    He's waiting out on the long patrol,
+    Till the names are called at the muster-roll
+        Of seamen overdue.
+    Far above him, in wind and rain,
+    Another is on patrol again--
+    The gap is closed in the Naval Chain
+        Where all the links are new.
+
+    Over his head the seas are white,
+    And the wind is blowing a gale to-night,
+        As if the Storm-King knew,
+    And roared a ballad of sleet and snow
+    To the man that lies on the sand below,
+    A trumpet-song for the winds to blow
+        To seamen overdue.
+
+    Was it sudden or slow--the death that came?
+    Roaring water or sheets of flame?
+        The end with none to view?
+    No man can tell us the way he died,
+    But over the clouds Valkyries ride
+    To open the gates and hold them wide
+        For seamen overdue.
+
+    But whether the end was swift or slow,
+    By the Hand of God, or a German blow,
+        My messmate overdue--
+    You went to Death--and the whisper ran
+    As over the Gates the horns began,
+    _Splendour of God! We have found a man_--
+        Good-bye! Good luck to you!
+
+
+
+
+OLD WOMEN
+
+
+
+
+OLD WOMEN.
+
+
+    Faint against the twilight, dim against the evening,
+    Fading into darkness against the lapping sea,
+    She sailed away from harbour, from safety into danger,
+    The ship that took him from me--my sailor boy from me.
+
+    He went away to join her, from me that loved and bore him,
+    Loved him ere I bore him, that was all the world to me.
+    "No time for leave, mother, must be back this evening,
+    Time for our patrol again, across the winter sea."
+
+    Six times over, since he went to join her,
+    Came he to see me, to run back again.
+    "Four hours' leave, mother--still got the steam up,
+    Going on patrol to-night--the old East lane."
+
+    "Seven times lucky, and perhaps we'll have a battle,
+    Then I'll bring a medal back and give it you to keep."
+    And his name is in the paper, with close upon a hundred,
+    Who lie there beside him, many fathom deep.
+
+    And beside him in the paper, somebody is writing,
+    --God! but how I hate him--a liar and a fool,--
+    "Where is the British Navy--is it staying in the harbours?
+    Has the Nelson spirit in the Fleet begun to cool?"
+
+
+
+
+CHIN UP
+
+
+
+
+CHIN UP.
+
+
+    Are the prices high and taxes stiff, is the prospect sad and dark?
+    Have you seen your capital dwindle down as low as the German mark?
+    Do you feel your troubles around you rise in an endless dreary wall?
+    Well--thank your God you were born in time for the Greatest War of all.
+
+    It will be all right in a thousand years--you won't be bankrupt then.
+    This isn't the time of stocks and shares, it's just the age of men.
+    The one that sticks it out will win--so don't lie down and bawl,
+    But thank your God you've helped to win the noblest War of all.
+
+    Away to the East in Flanders' mud, through Dante's dream of Hell,
+    The troops are working hard for peace with bayonet, bomb, and shell,
+    With poison gas and roaring guns beneath a smoking pall;
+    Yes--thank your God your kin are there--the finest troops of all.
+
+    You may be stripped of all you have--it may be all you say,
+    But you'll have your life and eyesight left, so stow your talk of pay.
+    You won't be dead in a bed of lime with those that heard the Call;
+    So thank your God you've an easy job in the Greatest War of all.
+
+    It isn't the money that's going to count when the Flanders' men return,
+    And a shake of your hand from Flanders' men is a thing you've
+       got to earn.
+    Just think how cold it's going to be in the Nation's Judgment Hall;
+    So damn your troubles and find your soul in the Greatest War of all!
+
+
+
+
+"... THAT HAVE NO DOUBTS"
+
+
+
+
+"... THAT HAVE NO DOUBTS."
+
+    --RUDYARD KIPLING.
+
+
+    _The last resort of Kings are we, but the voice of peoples too_--
+            Ask the guns of Valmy Ridge--
+            Lost at the Beresina Bridge,
+    When the Russian guns were roaring death and the Guard was
+       charging through.
+
+    _Ultima Ratio Regis, we--but he who has may hold,_
+            Se curantes Dei curant,
+            Hear the gunners that strain and pant,
+    As when before the rising gale the Great Armada rolled.
+
+    _Guns of fifty--sixty tons that roared at Jutland fight_,
+            Clatter and clang of hoisting shell;
+            See the flame where the salvo fell
+    Amidst the flash of German guns against the wall of white.
+
+    _The sons of English carronade or Spanish culverin_--
+            The Danish windows shivered and broke
+            When over the sea the children spoke,
+    And groaning turrets rocked again as we went out and in.
+
+    _We have no passions to call our own, we work for serf or lord,_
+            Load us well and sponge us clean--
+            Be your woman a slave or queen--
+    And we will clear the road for you who hold us by the sword.
+
+    _We come into our own again and wake to life anew_--
+            Put your paper and pens away,
+            For the whole of the world is ours to-day,
+    And we shall do the talking now to smooth the way for you.
+
+    _Howitzer gun or Seventy-five, the game is ours to play,_
+            And hills may quiver and mountains shake,
+            But the line in front shall bend or break.
+    What is it to us if the world is mad? For we are the Kings to-day.
+
+
+
+
+SKY SIGNS
+
+
+
+
+SKY SIGNS.
+
+
+    WHEN ALL THE GUNS ARE SPONGED AND CLEANED, AND FUZES GO TO STORE,
+    WHEN ALL THE WIRELESS STATIONS CRY--"COME HOME, YOU SHIPS OF WAR"--
+    "COME HOME AGAIN AND LEAVE PATROL, NO MATTER WHERE YOU BE."
+            We'll see the lights of England shine,
+            Flashing again on the steaming line,
+    As out of the dark the long grey hulls come rolling in from sea.
+
+    THE LONG-FORGOTTEN LIGHTS WILL SHINE AND GILD THE CLOUDS AHEAD,
+    OVER THE DARK HORIZON-LINE, ACROSS THE DREAMING DEAD
+    THAT WENT TO SEA WITH THE DARK BEHIND AND THE SPIN OF A COIN BEFORE.
+            Mark the gleam of Orfordness,
+            Showing a road we used to guess,
+    From the Shetland Isles to Dover cliffs--the shaded lane of war.
+
+    UP THE CHANNEL WITH GLEAMING PORTS WILL HOMING SQUADRONS GO,
+    AND SEE THE ENGLISH COAST ALIGHT WITH HEADLANDS ALL AGLOW
+    WITH THIRTY THOUSAND CANDLE-POWER FLUNG UP FROM FAR GRIS-NEZ.
+            Portland Bill and the Needles' Light--
+            Tompions back in the guns to-night--
+    For English lights are meeting French across the Soldiers' Way.
+
+    WHEN WE COME BACK TO ENGLAND THEN, WITH ALL THE WARRING DONE,
+    AND PAINT AND POLISH COME UP THE SIDE TO RULE ON TUBE AND GUN,
+    WE'LL KNOW BEFORE THE ANCHOR'S DOWN, THE TIDINGS WON'T BE NEW.
+            Lizard along to the Isle of Wight,
+            Every lamp was burning bright,
+    Northern Lights or Trinity House--we had the news from you!
+
+
+
+
+AN ENTENTE
+
+
+
+
+AN ENTENTE.
+
+
+    AS we were running the Channel along, with a rising wind abeam,
+    Steering home from an escort trip as fast as she could steam,
+    I'd just come up, relieving Bill, to look for Fritz again,
+    When I turns to the Skipper an', "Sir," I says, "I 'ears an aeroplane."
+    An' sure enough, from out o' the clouds astern, we seed 'im come,
+    An' down the wind the engine sang with a reg'lar oarin' 'um.
+    The Skipper 'e puts 'is glasses down, an' smilin' says to me,
+    "We needn't be pointin' guns at 'im--'e's one o' the R.F.C.
+    We don't expect to meet the Boche, or any o' his machines,
+    From here to France an' back again--except for submarines."
+    An' 'e looks again at the 'plane above, an' says, "I do believe
+    It's a fightin' bus--good luck to them--an' lots of London leave."
+
+          An' jolly good luck, says I, says I,
+            To you that's overhead;
+          An' may you never go dry, go dry,
+            Or want for a decent bed.
+          With yer gaudy patch, says I, says I,
+            Of Red an' White an' Blue--
+          Oh, may the bullets go by, go by,
+            An' not be findin' you.
+          Astonishing luck, says I, says I,
+            To you an' yer aeroplane;
+          An' if it's yer joss to die, to die,
+            When you go back again--
+          May the enemy say as you drop below,
+            An' you start your final dive:
+          "Three of us left to see him go,
+          An' it must be nice for him to know,
+            That wasn't afraid o' five."
+
+
+
+
+A BATTLE-PRAYER
+
+
+
+
+A BATTLE-PRAYER.
+
+
+SUBMARINES.
+
+    When the breaking wavelets pass all sparkling to the sky,
+    When beyond their crests we see the slender masts go by,
+    When the glimpses alternate in bubbles white and green,
+    And funnels grey against the sky show clear and fair between,
+    When the word is passed along--"Stern and beam and bow"--
+    "Action stations fore and aft--all torpedoes now!"
+    When the hissing tubes are still, as if with bated breath
+    They waited for the word to loose the silver bolts of death,
+    When the Watch beneath the Sea shall crown the great Desire,
+    And hear the coughing rush of air that greets the word to fire,
+    We'll ask for no advantage, Lord--but only we would pray
+    That they may meet this boat of ours upon their outward way.
+
+
+THE BATTLE-FLEET.
+
+    The moment we have waited long
+      Is closing on us fast,
+    When, cutting short the turret-gong,
+    We'll hear the Cordite's Battle-song
+      That hails the Day at last.
+    The clashing rams come driving forth
+      To meet the waiting shell,
+    And far away to East and North
+    Our targets steam to meet Thy Wrath,
+      And dare the Gates of Hell.
+    We do not ask Thee, Lord, to-day
+      To stay the sinking sun--
+    But hear Thy steel-clad servants pray,
+    And keep, O Lord, Thy mists away
+      Until Thy work is done.
+
+
+DESTROYERS.
+
+          Through the dark night
+          And the fury of battle
+      Pass the destroyers in showers of spray.
+    As the Wolf-pack to the flank of the cattle,
+      We shall close in on them--shadows of grey.
+          In from ahead,
+          Through shell-flashes red,
+      We shall come down to them, after the Day.
+          Whistle and crash
+          Of salvo and volley
+      Round us and into us while we attack.
+    Light on our target they'll flash in their folly,
+      Splitting our ears with the shrapnel-crack.
+
+          Fire as they will,
+          We'll come to them still,
+      Roar as they may at us--Back--Go Back!
+          White though the sea
+          To the shell-flashes foaming,
+      We shall be there at the death of the Hun.
+    Only we pray for a star in the gloaming
+      (Light for torpedoes and none for a gun).
+          Lord--of Thy Grace
+          Make it a race,
+      Over the sea with the night to run.
+
+
+
+
+AN ADMINISTRATIVE VICTORY
+
+
+
+
+AN ADMINISTRATIVE VICTORY.
+
+
+    A tale is told of a captain bold
+        Of E-boat Seventy-two;
+    She steered to eastward--pitched and rolled, and Poulson swore at her,
+       damp and cold,
+        As E-boat captains do.
+
+    And off the mouth of the German Bight,
+        With Borkum on the bow,
+    She saw the smoke of a German fleet--MIND YOUR FINGERS--SEVENTY FEET!
+        WE'RE IN FOR BUSINESS NOW....
+
+    (For enemy ships are hard to find--
+        You have to take them quick;
+    So copy the Eastern vulture's rule, that waits for days for an
+       Army mule--
+        Always ready to click.)
+
+    Out to the west from Helgoland
+        The big grey cruiser steered,
+    And the glinting rays of a rising sun flashed on funnel and
+       mast and gun,
+        And--Admiral Schultz's beard.
+
+    Down the wind the E-boat came
+       And passed the searching screen;
+    Nobody guessed the boat was there, till they heard the wallop and
+       saw the flare--
+       Where the pride of the fleet had been.
+
+    'Twixt white and green of dancing waves
+        The racing tracks were seen,
+    And Poulson watching them get there, cried--_Hold the crockery--
+       Starboard side!_
+        _For the kick of a magazine!_
+
+    The escort ran and the cruisers ran
+        At the thought of an English snare;
+    Scattered and spread to left and right, to the friendly arms of
+       the German Bight,
+        And left the ocean bare.
+
+    Then the coffee was spilt, the E-boat rolled
+        To a deuce of a shaking bang;
+    To the sound of the hammer of Aser-Thor, victory-song of Naval War,
+        The hull of the E-boat rang.
+
+    And Poulson swinging the eye-piece round,
+        Lifted eyebrows high,
+    For far aloft, when the smoke had cleared, he saw the flash of a
+       golden beard
+        Against the empty sky.
+
+    "Admiral over! _Surface_, lads!
+        He's flying a belted sword;
+    Pipe the side or stern or bow, stand to attention smartly now--
+        Wherever he comes aboard."
+
+    The Admiral landed Cabré-wise
+        And high the fountains burst--
+    (What is the meaning of Cabré-wise? To men of the air it signifies--
+        His after-end was first).
+
+    They piped the side, and still they stood
+        To watch him struggle and heave,
+    As he fought the slope of the rounded deck (for none could pull at an
+       Admiral's neck
+        Without the Admiral's leave).
+
+    They took him below, and sat him down
+        On the edge of the Captain's bed,--
+    Treatment vile for a foemen caught, they gave him a bottle of
+       Navy Port--
+        Fiery, dark, and red.
+
+    They landed him at a Naval Base,
+       With S. two-twenty D.
+    _Supplied_--_a large and bearded Hun: Grosse Admirals, angry, One--
+        For draft to Admiraltee._
+
+    And Grosse-Admiral Schultz von Schmidt,
+        Graf von Hansa-Zoom,
+    Faded away to Donnington Hall, to an English park with a guarded wall
+        --To an elegant private room.
+
+    And there he paced the carpet up,
+        And paced the carpet down,
+    "Alte Himmel!"--the prisoners cried--"Some one's trod on the
+       German pride,
+        And dared the Hansa frown!"
+
+    The Admiral called for a fountain pen
+        And Reference Sheets[1] galore,
+    And silence fell on the smoking-room--for Grosse-Admiral Hansa-Zoom
+        Was throwing a Gage of War.
+
+    "_Can I believe your Lordships mean
+        To stand so idly by--
+    When a young lieutenant of twenty-four, pleading the need of Naval War,
+        Shall make an Admiral fly?_
+
+    _Never shall I believe it true
+        That I should have to fall
+    On an icy sea with an awful spank, by the act of one of a junior rank,
+        I--Schultz, of Donnington Hall._"
+
+    Their Lordships read--and bells were heard
+        That woke the echoing past;
+    And Scouts and messengers jumped and fled--till all was still as a
+       world of dead
+        Beneath the wireless mast.
+
+    My Lords in solemn conclave drew
+        Behind a bolted door,
+    Threshing it out in full debate--"Is it a case for an Acting Rate?
+        Or use of Martial Law?"
+
+    At four o'clock in the afternoon,
+        With tea-cups clattering past,
+    Along the echoing Portland floor the whisper passed from door to door--
+        "_They've settled it all at last!_"
+
+    And I have the word of a lady fair
+        In Room Two Thousand B--
+    (A perfect peach, I beg to state), who typed the letter in triplicate
+        And passed it on to me.
+
+    "_We find the Enemy Admiral's Note
+        Is based on Service Law--
+    That disrespect to a Flag afloat has sullied the fame of Poulson's boat
+        Despite the Needs of War._
+
+    _But he erred unknowing--so we shall mask
+        His breach of Service pomp,--
+    We'll make him an Admiral, D.S.B.[2]--Acting--payless--biscuit free,
+        In lieu of lodging and Comp._
+
+    _We'll rate him at once as an A.I.O.[3]
+        With a K.R.A. and an I.,[4]
+    We'll make him a deputy C.P.O.,[5] with Rank of Admiral, whether or no,
+        And a beautiful Flag to fly._"
+
+    And now when Poulson sails to war
+        In E-boat Seventy-two,
+    The boatswains pipe and the bugles blare, "_Stand to attention--
+       forward there_!
+        _The Admiral's passing you!_"
+
+    That is the tale as told to me
+        By a friend from Beatty's Fleet,
+    When over a glass (or even two), he swore to me that the tale was true,
+        In a Tavern in Regent Street.
+
+    [1] A letter-form which enables the sender to address his
+    Seniors more abruptly than he would dare to do without its
+    assistance.
+
+    [2] D.S.B. = Duty Steam Boat.
+
+    [3] A.I.O. = Admiralty Interim Order.
+
+    [4] K.R.A.I. = King's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions.
+
+    [5] C.P.O. = Chief Petty Officer.
+
+
+
+
+A NIGHTMARE
+
+
+
+
+A NIGHTMARE.
+
+
+    The Council of Democracy around the table drew
+    (The table was a beauty--it was polished--it was new,
+    Twenty feet from side to side and half a mile in length,
+    Built of rosewood and mahogany of double extra strength.
+    The C in C had gone to jail to answer to the charge
+    Of saying what he thought about Democracy at large.
+    So the Council of Democracy had taken on the job,
+    After voting the removal of his Autocratic nob.
+    And the table was erected in a calm secluded spot,
+    Well away from any trenches, lest a voter should be shot).
+    And the Chairman raised a hammer and he hit the board a whack,
+    No one paid the least attention, so he put the hammer back.
+    Then he read the lengthy minutes of the gathering before,
+    To the ever-growing murmur of the Democratic snore.
+    And he put before the meeting all the questions of the day,
+    Such as "Shorter hours for Delegates, and seven times the pay."
+    With a minor matter for the end--"What shall the Council do
+    About this fellow Mackensen? they say he's coming through
+    With a hundred thousand hirelings of the Hohenzollern Line,
+    And breaking all the Union Rules by working after nine."
+    At this a group of Delegates departed for the door,
+    To consult with their constituents the conduct of the War.
+    The remainder started voting on the Delegation Pay,
+    And agreed with unanimity to seven quid a day.
+    They decided that unless the Germans travelled very fast,
+    There'd be time for all the speeches--so they took the matter last.
+    But just as Mr Blithers to the Chairman had addressed
+    His opinion--he departed for the Country of the Blest,
+    (Both in body and in spirit to the heavens he departed,
+    And the Council looked dispirited, though hardly broken-hearted).
+    All the delegates were wondering from whence the shell had come;
+    One arose to ask a question--Bang!!--he went to Kingdom Come.
+    "Mr Chairman," cried a Delegate. "A point of order! I
+    Don't believe the Huns are coming--it's an Autocratic lie.
+    I shall move the Army question do be left upon the Table,
+    And I'm going home to England just as fast as I am able."
+    Then he gathered up his papers, and was pushing back his chair,
+    When a heavy high explosive sent him sailing in the air.
+    The Chairman beat his hammer on the table all the while,
+    Yelling oaths and calling "Order" in a Democratic style.
+    But the Delegates were started on the question of the War,
+    (So as not to waste the speeches that they'd written out before).
+    And the Council of Democracy--a thousand fluent tongues--
+    Let the Germans have it hearty from its Democratic lungs.
+    Through the bursting of the shrapnel they were constant to the end,--
+    Kept referring to each other as "My honourable friend."
+    And in groups of ten and twenty they were blasted into space
+    By the disrespectful cannon of an Autocratic race,
+    Till the gathering had dwindled to an incoherent few,
+    Who were still explaining volubly what England ought to do,
+    When the cannon ceased abruptly and they heard the Germans cheer,
+    And a sergeant entered roaring, "Himmel, Ach! was Schmutz ist hier!
+    Mask your faces, pig-dogs, quickly--all the room is full of gas.
+    Vorwärts, Carl der Kindermörder--use your bayonet, Saxon ass!"
+    Faithful to the last, the Chairman, spying strangers all around,
+    Told them they were out of order; hardly seemed to touch the ground.
+    Told them of his best intentions, how with love of them he burned,
+    Shouted as the bayonet caught him, "Ow! the Council is adjourned!"
+
+
+
+
+RELEASED
+
+
+
+
+RELEASED.
+
+
+    We are drifting back from the End of Hell to the home we long for so,--
+    Back from the land of fear and hate that jeers at wounded men;
+    Maimed and crippled are we to-day, but free from curse or blow--
+    That we knew too well in the land of Cain, the guarded prisoners' den.
+
+    We drift away to the homes we left a thousand years ago,
+    And there we wait in the Truce of God for the hand of Death to fall,
+    Waiting aside in hovel or hall--where only neighbours know--
+    The broken men that the War has left to shun the gaze of all.
+
+    Is it nothing to you that pass us by--hurrying on your way,
+    Whispering low of peace and rest to the tune of a German song?
+    Only but for the Grace of God you might be where we lay--
+    With festering wounds in a truck for beasts, the butt
+       of a laughing throng.
+
+    Peace and Rest? The peace will come when God shall stay His hand,
+    And change the heart of the German race that mocks at wounded men.
+    The rest you seek? What need of that? you fight for a Christian land,
+    And all Eternity waits for you--what need of rest till then?
+
+    We are broken and down in the fight of the world for an end
+       to heathen lust,
+    But the sword we dropped when the darkness came is yours to handle yet.
+    If you sheathe the sword for a greed of gold or suffer the steel
+       to rust,
+    The curse of the captive men be yours--the day when you forget--!
+
+
+
+
+REGULUS
+
+
+
+
+REGULUS.
+
+    (Written after reading the story of that name in 'A Diversity
+    of Creatures' by Kipling.)
+
+
+    Out to the wharf where the long ship lay with her beak to the open sea,
+    He went by the way of the merchantmen that trade to the ports of Spain;
+    Clamouring folk beside him ran with sorrowing voice or wailing plea:
+    "Hero--Pride of the Roman State! Turn again at the Harbour-Gate,
+    Back and away from Tyrian hate with us to Rome again."
+
+    Out on the wharf he walked from those--that wailed and wept
+       to see him go;
+    And hand in his she walked with him--her royal head on high.
+    And the crowd was still as she turned and spoke--her hand in his and
+       her eyes aglow:
+    "Here where the tide and Tiber foam, I turn from you to an empty home.
+    But alone of women of wailing Rome I have no tears to dry;
+
+    "Pass to the sea and the Death beyond to the home of the Gods you left
+       for Earth;
+    Of all the women of Rome to-night, no pride shall equal mine.
+    A God, the man that leaves me now--but ah! a lover that
+       thought me worth--
+    The whispered word of a husband true--I thank the Gods that
+       I hold from you
+    The right that fair Eurydice knew--the love of a man Divine."
+
+
+
+
+A NORTH SEA NOTE
+
+
+
+
+A NORTH SEA NOTE.
+
+
+    The wind that whispered softly over Kiel across the Bay,
+    Died away as the dark closed down,
+    Till the Dockyard glare showed the ending of the day
+    In the Fortress-Town.
+
+    In the silence of the night as the big ships swung
+    To the buoys as the flood-tide made,
+    Came a clamour from the wind like a shield that is rung
+    By a foemen's blade.
+
+    Far above the masts where the wireless showed,
+    Traced out against a star-lit sky,
+    A voice called down from the Whist-hound's road
+    Where the clouds went by--
+
+    Listen down below--In the High Sea Fleet,
+      For a signal that was shouted up to me
+    By the sailors that I left on the old, old beat,
+      Far out in the cold North Sea.
+
+    They shouted up to me as the glass went down,
+      And they ducked to the North-West spray,
+    "Will you take a message to the Fortress-Town,
+      And the Fleet that is lying in the Bay?
+
+    "Say that we are waiting in the waters of the North,
+      And we'll wait till the seas run dry--
+    Or the High Sea Fleet from the Bight comes forth,
+      And the twelve-inch shells go by.
+
+    "We have waited very long, but we haven't any doubt
+      They are longing for the day we'll meet.
+    But tell 'em as you pass that the sooner they are out,
+      All the better for the English Fleet.
+
+    "For when we see 'em sinking--(they'll be fighting to the last,
+      And for those that are lost we'll grieve,)
+    We will cheer for a signal at the Flagship's mast--
+      On arrival at the Base--Long Leave!"
+
+
+
+
+SOMETHING WRONG
+
+
+
+
+SOMETHING WRONG.
+
+
+    "The German Fleet is coming,"
+    The Sunday papers say,
+    "And the shell will soon be humming
+    When they fix upon the Day."
+    All the Sunday experts write,
+    Working very late at night--
+    "They are coming--they'll be on you any day."
+
+    Though it's very cheery reading,
+    And we hear it ev'ry week;
+    Yet the Hun is still unheeding,
+    And is just as far to seek.
+    And it seems so unavailing
+    They should write and tell us so--
+    If the Hun is shortly sailing,
+    Couldn't _some one_ let him know?
+
+    We are ready, and we're waiting,
+    And we know they're going to fight;
+    And we're just as good at hating
+    As the Brainy Ones that write.
+    But they talk of Information
+    They have gathered unbeknown--
+    That "the mighty German Nation
+    Is a mass of skin and bone."
+    And they take their affidavy
+    That a fight is due at sea:
+    _Dammit--tell the German Navy_,
+    What's the use of telling me?
+
+
+
+
+WE
+
+
+
+
+WE.
+
+
+    All our fighting brothers are away across the foam,
+      Hats off to the Englishman!
+    Here's a chance for Englishmen living safe at home,
+      Make a lot of money while you can!
+
+    We are fighting for the Right and the Honour of the Race
+      With the Bulldog Grip they know;
+    Who's the silly novice there putting on the pace?
+      You'll be taken for a Yank--Go slow!
+
+    All the Nations know us as the finest of the Earth;
+      Three cheers for the lads in blue!
+    An' we're drawing extra wages that are more than we are worth--
+      But a half-day's work will do.
+
+    The shades of England's fighting men are watching us with pride
+      As we live for England's fame;
+    To save us for posterity was why they went and died--
+      Oh! The War is a real fine game!
+
+    Let the War go rolling on alone for awhile,
+      Let the line stand fast in the West;
+    Let 'em learn to use the bayonet in the grand old style,
+      While the Bulldog Boys have a rest.
+
+    What's the good of hurrying? British pluck'll win;
+      We can stand to the strain all right.
+    What about another rise? Send the notice in--
+      Just to show how the Bulldogs fight.
+
+    Chorus! all together--We're the finest race of all,
+      So beware of the English Blade;
+    Now the fighting men are gone--why, however many fall,
+      All the more for the lads that stayed.
+
+
+
+
+THE SAILOR'S VIEW
+
+
+
+
+THE SAILOR'S VIEW.
+
+(1916).
+
+
+    Too proud to fight? I'm not so sure--our skipper now and then
+    Has lectured to us on patrol on foreign ships and men,
+    And other nation's submarines, when cruising round the Bight;
+    And 'seems to me--when they begin--the Yankee chaps can fight.
+    Why, if I was in the army (which I ain't--and no regrets)
+    And had my pick of Generals--from London's latest pets,
+    To Hannibal and Wellington--to follow whom I chose,
+    I wouldn't think about it long--I'd give the job to those
+    Who fought across a continent for three long years and more
+    (I bet the neutral papers didn't say in 'sixty-four
+    Of Jackson, Sherman, Lee and Grant--"The Yanks can only shout"--
+    That lot was somewhere near the front when pluck was handed out);
+    But what the Skipper said was this; "There's only been but one
+    Successful submarine attack before this war begun,
+    And it wasn't on a liner on the easy German plan,
+    But on a well-found man-of-war, and Dixon was the man
+    Who showed us how to do the trick, a tip for me and you,
+    And I'd like to keep the standard up of Dixon and his crew,
+    For they hadn't got a submarine that cost a hundred thou',
+    But a leaky little biscuit-box, and stuck upon her bow
+    A spar torpedo like a mine, and they and Dixon knew
+    That if they sank the enemy they'd sink the _David_ too.
+    She'd drowned a crew or two before--they dredged her up again,
+    And manned and pushed her off to sea.--My oath, it's pretty plain
+    They had some guts to give away, that tried another trip
+    In a craft they knew was rather more a coffin than a ship;
+    And they carried out a good attack, and did it very well.
+    As a model for the future, why, it beats the books to Hell,
+    A tradition for the U.S.A., and, yes--for England too;
+    For they were men with English names, and kin to me and you,
+    And I'd like to claim an ancestor with Dixon when he died
+    At the bottom of the river at the _Housatonic's_ side."
+
+
+
+
+STONEWALL JACKSON
+
+
+
+
+STONEWALL JACKSON.
+
+
+    Over the low Virginian farms the smoke of the ev'ning rose and flowed,
+    The scent of cedar hung in the air--the scent of burning sap,
+    And up the valley the murmur died, the sound of feet on a dusty road--
+    A clatter and ring of horse and guns that led to Ashby's Gap.
+
+    And the Blue Ridge called to the Shenandoah stream,
+    As the Massanutton hills grew black--
+    "Look your last, Shenandoah--where the bayonets gleam,
+    On your man who is never coming back.
+
+    "Ah! Manassas, look again on the glimmer of the steel
+    That you lit with the red fires' glow,
+    When the Grey men roared at an all-night meal,
+    Look again as the Grey men go.
+
+    "He is looking back at us with a hand across his eyes,
+    Look your last, Shenandoah, as he rides
+    To a death beyond the Gap where the dust-clouds rise,
+    O'er the road that the greenwood hides.
+
+    "He will send a message back as the dark clouds lower,
+    And you'll hear it in the sighing of the breeze,
+    _Let us pass across the river (can you hear me, Shenandoah?)
+    To a rest in the shadow of the trees_."
+
+
+
+
+WET SHIPS
+
+
+
+
+WET SHIPS.
+
+    "... And will remain on your Patrol till the 8th
+    December...."--(_Extract from Orders._)
+
+
+    The North-East Wind came armed and shod from the ice-locked
+       Baltic shore,
+    The seas rose up in the track he made, and the rollers raced before;
+    He sprang on the Wilhelmshaven ships that reeled across the tide.
+    "Do you cross the sea to-night with me?" the cold North-Easter cried--
+    Along the lines of anchored craft the Admiral's answer flashed,
+    And loud the proud North-Easter laughed as the second anchors splashed.
+    "By God! you're right--you German men, with a three-day gale to blow,
+    It is better to wait by your harbour gate than follow where I go!"
+
+    Over the Bight to the open sea the great wind sang as he sheered:
+    "I rule--I rule the Northern waste--I speak, and the seas are cleared;
+    You nations all whose harbours ring the edge of my Northern sea,
+    At peace or war, when you hear my voice you shall know no Lord but me."
+    Then into the wind in a cloud of foam and sheets of rattling spray,
+    Head to the bleak and breaking seas in dingy black and grey,
+    Taking it every lurch and roll in tons of icy green
+    Came out to her two-year-old patrol--an English submarine.
+    The voice of the wind rose up and howled through squalls of
+       driving white:
+    "You'll know my power, you English craft, before you make the Bight;
+    I rule--I rule this Northern Sea, that I raise and break to foam.
+    Whom do you call your Overlord that dares me in my home?"
+    Over the crest of a lifting sea in bursting shells of spray,
+    She showed the flash of her rounded side as over to port she lay,
+    Clanging her answer up the blast that made her wireless sing:
+    "_I serve the Lord of the Seven Seas. Ha! Splendour of God--
+       the King!!_"
+
+    Twenty feet of her bow came out, dripping and smooth it sprang,
+    Over the valley of green below as her stamping engines rang;
+    Then down she fell till the waters rose to meet her straining rails--
+    "I serve my King, who sends me here to meet your winter gales."
+    (Rank upon rank the seas swept on and broke to let her through,
+    While high above her reeling bridge their shattered remnants flew);
+    "_If you blow the stars from the sky to-night, your boast in
+       your teeth I'll fling,
+    I am your master--Overlord, and--Dog of the English King!_"
+
+
+
+
+THAT BLINKIN' CAT
+
+
+
+
+THAT BLINKIN' CAT.
+
+    (Late of H.M.S. _Maidstone_.)
+
+
+    In the Diving-room, where the O.O.D.[6] his weary vigil keeps,
+    Battered and scarred with years of strife behind the door she sleeps,
+    Fighting her battles o'er again as ancient warriors may,
+    With bristling fur as she dreams anew of many a noble fray.
+                 Savage and Silent,
+                 Swift in the onslaught
+                 As the great eagle
+                 Stoops to the victim;
+                 Guard of the Gangway,
+                 Dreadful--prolific,
+                 Mother of hundreds,
+                 Terrier-Strafer,
+                 Messenger-biter.
+    Hail to the guard of the _Maidstone's_ Gangway--Skoal!
+
+    Sing of the day the air was full of words like "Alabaster,"
+    When she ate a piece of the Corporal's hand and bit the Quartermaster;
+    The day she fought with an Airedale dog and drove him back to shore--
+    For the sake of her sixty little ones, she fought--and had some more.
+                 Faithful and loyal,
+                 Guard of the Gangway,
+                 Turning the dogs back--
+                 Yelping and howling.
+                 Biting her masters--
+                 Corporals--any one
+                 Fiercely domestic,
+                 Easily queen of--
+                 Pugnacious obstetrics--
+                 Motherly War.
+    Hail to the terror and pride of the _Maidstone_--Skoal!!
+
+    Sing of the day she won the fray with a new "Pandora" dog,
+    And the Quartermaster shone with pride as he entered in the log:
+    "At 10 P.M. we dowsed our pipes and drew the _Nettle's_ fires,
+    At 10.15 six births aboard--_that blinkin' cat of ours_!"
+
+    [6] O.O.D.--Officer of the day.
+
+
+
+
+1797.
+
+
+
+
+1797.
+
+
+    Our brothers of the landward side
+    Are bound by Church and stall,
+    By Councils OEcumenical,
+    By Gothic arches tall;
+    But we who know the cold grey sea,
+    The salt and flying spray,
+      We praise the Lord in our fathers' way,
+      In the simple faith of the sea we pray,
+      To the God that the winds and waves obey
+    Who sailed on Galilee.
+    We pray as the Flag-Lieutenant prayed,
+    At St Vincent's cabin door
+    (Twenty sail of the line in view--
+    South-West by South they bore):
+    "O Lord of Hosts, I praise Thee now,
+    And bow before Thy might,
+      Who has given us fingers and hands to fight,
+      And twenty ships of the line in sight;
+      Thou knewest, O Lord, and placed them right--
+    To leeward, on the bow."
+
+
+
+
+AFTER THE WAR
+
+
+
+
+AFTER THE WAR.
+
+
+    That far-off day when Peace is signed (and all the papers say--
+    "A most important by-election starts at Kew to-day;
+    We urge our readers one and all to loyally support
+    The Independent Candidate--Count Katzenjammerdordt")
+    Will change a lot of little things--perhaps we'll get some leave,
+    And hear a yarn of extra pay, which no one will believe;
+    The salvage ships will hurry out, two thousand wrecks to find,
+    The monuments to Kultur that the Huns have left behind.
+    We'll watch the sweepers put to sea ten million mines to seek,
+    And--Patrol Flotilla Exercise will start within a week;
+    Someone Big will say to Someone: "Time for work and time for play,
+    (Rub his hands together briskly) We'll commence the work to-day;
+    They have had their fun and fighting, and they must be getting slack,
+    Stop all leave and start manoeuvres--for the good old times are back."
+    Then destroyers and torpedo-boats and submarines and oilers
+    Will receive a little notice headed "Maintenance of Boilers,"
+    "To economise in fuel while the ships are out at sea
+    Each pound of steam will count as two, and every knot as three."
+    We'll have the old manoeuvre Rules to show us what to do.
+    "I rose within two thousand yards and have torpedoed you,"
+    "My counter-claim is obvious--to port you must retire,"
+    "I sank you with a Maxim gun just as you rose to fire."
+    Ships will carry navigation lights--"Precautionary Measure,"
+    "An infringement of this solemn rule incurs My Lords' Displeasure."
+    Yes, the after-war manoeuvres will be fearful to behold,
+    Not been held since nineteen--("half a minute, surely you've
+       been told"),
+    Hush, you'll get me into trouble ("it was eighteen months ago--
+    And the whole Grand Fleet was in it--I was there, I ought to know:
+    _Red Fleet to start from Helgoland and Blue from Udsire Light,
+    To meet in sixty-twenty North and have a morning fight.
+    No ship should cross a line between the Jahde and Amrum Bank,
+    But should a German flag be seen (unless of junior rank),_
+    _No captain can do very wrong who indicates by guns--
+    We won't have our manoeuvres spoilt by interfering Huns._
+    Perhaps the wording isn't right, perhaps it isn't true,
+    But we've got to have manoeuvres when there's nothing else to do.")
+    And when the Censor fades away and leaves the presses clear
+    For all the "Truths about the War," by "One who has no fear,"
+    And all the "Contract Scandals," by "A Clerk behind the Door,"
+    The book I want to see in print is "Humours of the War,"
+    Though I fear the other Censor (Morals, Cinemas, and Vice)
+    Would expurgate the best of them as being hardly nice;
+    Still, even with the cream suppressed a volume could be filled
+    With the epigrams of killing and the jokes of being killed,
+    With a preface by the officer we rescued from the wave,
+    When a cloud of steam and lyddite smoke lay o'er the
+       "Bluecher's" grave,
+    Who, as the bowmen fished him out and passed him aft to dry,
+    Read the name upon their ribbons with a twinkle in his eye,
+    And said: "A Westo ship, I think--I guess my luck is in,
+    I'm sick of German substitutes--now for some Plymouth gin."
+    And a picture of the sailor in a certain submarine,
+    Which was diving through the waters where the sweepers hadn't been,
+    And who heard a muffled bumping noise that passed along the side--
+    A noise that many men have heard an instant ere they died;
+    And broke the silence following the last appalling thud
+    With "Good old ruddy Kaiser! there's another bloomin' dud!"
+    There's a story too of Jutland, or perhaps another show,
+    When the cruisers and destroyers had a meeting with the foe;
+    And as the range was closing, and they waited for the word,
+    From a sailor at an after-gun the following was heard:
+    "It isn't _that_ that turns me up--'e's not the only one"--
+    But then the roar of ranging guns--the action had begun--
+    And for twenty awful minutes there was undiluted hell,
+    With flame and steam and cordite smoke and high-explosive shell.
+    Then as the bugle-call rang out, the savage fire to check,
+    The loading numbers wiped their brows and looked around the deck:
+    "As I was saying," came the voice, "before this row began,
+    I think 'e should 've married 'er--if 'e'd bin 'alf a man."
+
+
+
+
+LOW VISIBILITY
+
+
+
+
+LOW VISIBILITY.
+
+                _We sailed from the sand-isles,
+                In Sea Hawk and Dragon,
+                Over the White Water,
+                War-ready all of us.
+                Soon came the sea-mist,
+                Soft was the wind then,
+                Lay there the long-ships,
+                Lifting and falling.
+                Then cried the Captain:
+                "Cold is the sea-fog,
+                Weary is waiting-time,
+                Wet are the byrnies;
+                Burnish the breastplates,
+                Broadswords and axes!
+                Hand we the horns round,
+                Hail to the Dragon!"_
+
+
+    Our gentle pirate ancestors from off the Frisian Isles
+    Kept station where we now patrol so many weary miles:
+    There were no International Laws of Hall or Halleck then,
+    They only knew the simple rule of "Death to beaten men."
+    And what they judged a lawful prize was any sail they saw
+    From Scarboro' to the sandy isles along the Saxon shore.
+    We differ from our ancestors' conception of a prize,
+    And we cruise about like Agag 'neath Sir Samuel Evans' eyes;
+    But on one eternal subject we would certainly agree:
+    It's seldom you can see a mile across the Northern sea,
+    For as the misty clouds came down and settled wet and cold,
+    The sodden halliards creaked and strained as to the swell they rolled.
+    Each yellow-bearded pirate knew beyond the veil of white
+    The prize of all the prizes must be passing out of sight;
+    And drearily they waited while metheglin in a skin
+    Was passed along the benches, and the oars came sliding in;
+    Then scramasax and battleaxe were polished up anew,
+    And they waited for the fog to lift, the same as me and you;
+    Though we're waiting on the bottom at the twenty fathom line,
+    We are burnishing torpedoes to a Sunday morning shine.
+    The sailor pauses as he quaffs his tot of Navy rum,
+    And listens to a noise that drowns the circulator's hum:
+    "D'y 'ear those blank propellers, Bill--_the blinking female dog_--
+    That's Tirpitz in the 'Indenburg gone past us in the fog!"
+
+
+
+
+HANG ON
+
+
+
+
+HANG ON.
+
+
+    Two o' the morn, and a rising sea, I'd like to ease to slow,
+    But we're off on a stunt and pressed for time, so I reckon it's
+       Eastward Ho!
+    So pick up your skirts and hustle along, old woman, you've got to go--
+          Look-out, you fool. Hang on!
+
+    Up she comes on a big grey sea and winks at the misty moon,
+    Then down the hill like a falling lift, we're due for a beauty soon;
+    And here it comes--she'll be much too late--yes, damn it, she's
+       out of tune--
+          Look-out, you fool. Hang on!
+
+    You can feel her shake from stem to stern with the crash of her
+       plunging bow,
+    And quiver anew to the thrusting screw, and the booming engines' row;
+    Then _rah-rah-rah_ on a rising note--my oath, they're racing now--
+          Look-out, you fool. Hang on!
+
+    The streaky water rushes by as the crest of the sea goes past,
+    And you see her hull from the hydroplanes to the heel of her
+       wireless mast
+    Stand out and hang as she leaps the trough to dive at the next
+       one--Blast--!
+          Look-out, you fool. Hang on!
+
+    In the hollow between she stops for breath, then starts her
+       climb anew--
+    "I can see your guns and wireless mast, old girl, but I can't see you,
+    And you'd better be quick and lift again--she won't, she's
+       diving through"--
+          Look-out, you fool. Hang on!
+
+    The Lord be thanked, it's my relief--Cheer up, old sport, it's clean;
+    No, just enough to wash your face--you could hardly call it green;
+    A jolly good sea-boat this one is, at least, for a submarine--
+          Look-out, you fool. Hang on!
+
+
+
+
+TO FRITZ
+
+
+
+
+TO FRITZ.
+
+
+    I wish that I could be a Hun, to dive about the sea--
+    I wouldn't go for merchantmen, a man-of-war for me;
+    There are lots of proper targets for attacking, little Fritz,
+    But you seem to like the merchantmen, and blowing them to bits.
+    I suppose it must be easy fruit to get an Iron Cross
+    By strafing sail and cargo ships--but don't you feel the loss
+    Of the wonderful excitement when you face a man-of-war,
+    And tearing past you overhead the big propellers roar?
+    When you know that it's a case of "May the fish run good and true,"
+    For if they don't it's ten to one it's R.I.P. for you?
+    Although perhaps you can't be blamed--your motives may be pure--
+    You're rather new to submarines--in fact, an amateur;
+    But we'd like to take your job awhile and show you how it's done,
+    And leave you on the long patrol to wait your brother Hun.
+    You wouldn't like the job, my lad--the motors turning slow,
+    You wouldn't like the winter-time--storm and wind and snow;
+    You'd find it weary waiting, Fritz--unless your faith is strong--
+    Up and down on the long patrol--How long, O Lord, how long?
+    We don't patrol for merchant ships, there's none but neutrals there,
+    Up and down on the old patrol, you can hear the E-boat's prayer:
+    "Give us a ten-knot breeze, O Lord, with a clear and blazing sky,
+    And help our eyes at the periscope as the High Sea Fleet goes by."
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SCOTTISH REGIMENTS
+
+
+
+
+TO THE SCOTTISH REGIMENTS.
+
+
+      _Land of sorrow--war and weeping,
+        Granite rock and falling snow,
+      Where Romance is never sleeping,
+        Where the fires of freedom glow._
+
+    Where the spark has never died, be the cause however lost,
+      Be the breath however humble that would fan it to a flame;
+    From the shieling, from the castle, did they ever count the cost
+      Ere they went to meet a rebel's death and perished for a name?
+
+    While England learnt the Roman tongue and paid her tax to Gaul,
+    The Caledonian tribute clashed along the Roman wall--
+    From East to West the sentinels looked out towards the North--
+             "_Amboglanna has sent for aid,
+              For the heather is bright with targe and blade
+              Away to the silvery Forth._"
+
+    When the Scottish host looked down and scorned to charge the foe
+    That filed around the fatal hill and crossed the stream below,
+    When the flowers of the forest fell and withered in the fight--
+             "_Shoulder to shoulder around the King,
+              Hear the Claymore whistle and sing
+              Our funeral song to-night._"
+
+    The English knew it at Prestonpans--the wall against their backs,
+    When down the slope the clansmen came with the long Lochaber axe,
+    The dew on the grass and the morning mist and a roar of charging men,--
+              _Pipers playing on either flank--
+              "Steady the volleys, the leading rank!"
+              The fires were blazing then._
+
+    And the spark has gone to Flanders, as the Prussian butchers know,
+      For they learnt at Loos and Hulluch from the Caledonian sword
+    The prayer of Anglo-Saxon priests a thousand years ago--
+      "From the fury of the Northern men, deliver us, O Lord."
+
+
+
+
+PRIVILEGED
+
+
+
+
+PRIVILEGED.
+
+
+    They called across to Peter at the changing of the Guard,
+      At the red-gold Doors that the Angels keep,--
+    "Send us help to the Portal, for they press upon us hard,
+      They are straining at the Gate, many deep."
+
+    Then Peter rose and went to the wicket by the Wall,
+      Where the Starlight flashed upon the crowd;
+    And he saw a mighty wave from the Greatest Gale of all
+      Break beneath him with a roar, swelling loud--
+
+    "_Let us in! Let us in! We have left a load of sin
+      On the battlefield that flashes far below.
+    From the trenches or the sea there's a pass for such as we,
+      For we died with our faces to the foe.
+
+    "We haven't any creed, for we never felt the need,
+      And our morals are as ragged as can be;
+    But we finished in a way that has cleared us of the clay,
+      And we're coming to you clean, as you can see."_
+
+    Then Peter looked below him with a smile upon his lips,
+      And he answered, "Ye are fighters, as I know
+    By your badges of the air, of the trenches, and the ships,
+      And the wounds that on your bodies glisten so."
+
+    And he looked upon the wounds, that were many and were grim,
+      And his glance was all-embracing--unafraid;
+    And he looked to meet the eyes that were smiling up to him,
+      All a-level as a new-forged blade.
+
+    "Ye are savage men and rough--from the fo'c'sle and the tent;
+      Ye have put High Heaven to alarm;
+    But I see it written clear by the road ye went,
+      That ye held by the Fifteenth Psalm."
+
+    And they shouted in return, "_'Tis a thing we've never read,
+      But you passed our friends inside
+    That won to the end of the road we tread
+      Long ago when the Mons Men died._"
+
+    "_Let us in! Let us in! We have fallen for the Right,
+      And the Crown that we listed to win,
+    That we earned by the Somme or the waters of the Bight;
+      You're a fighting man yourself--Let us in!_"
+
+    Then Peter gave a sign and the Gates flung wide
+    To the sound of a bugle-call:
+    "Pass the fighting men to the ranks inside,
+    Who came from the earth or the cold grey tide,
+    With their heads held high and a soldiers stride,
+    To a Friend in the Judgment Hall."
+
+
+
+
+"OUR ANNUAL"
+
+
+
+
+"OUR ANNUAL."
+
+
+    Up the well-remembered fairway, past the buoys and forts we drifted--
+    Saw the houses, roads, and churches as they were a year ago.
+    Far astern were wars and battles, all the dreary clouds were lifted,
+    As we turned the Elbow Ledges--felt the engines ease to "Slow."
+
+    Rusty side and dingy paintwork, stripped for war and cleared
+       for battle--
+    Saw the harbour-tugs around us--smelt the English fields again,--
+    English fields and English hedges--sheep and horses, English cattle,
+    Like a screen unrolled before us, through the mist of English rain.
+
+    Slowly through the basin entrance--twenty thousand tons a-crawling
+    With a thousand men aboard her, all a-weary of the War--
+    Warped her round and laid alongside with the cobble-stones a-calling--
+    "There's a special train awaiting, just for you to come ashore."
+
+    Out again as fell the evening, down the harbour in the gloaming
+    With the sailors on the fo'c'sle looking wistfully a-lee--
+    Just another year of waiting--just another year of roaming
+    For the Majesty of England--for the Freedom of the Sea.
+
+
+
+
+MASCOTS
+
+
+
+
+MASCOTS.
+
+
+    When the galleys of Phoenicia, through the gates of Hercules,
+    Steered South and West along the coast to seek the Tropic Seas,
+    When they rounded Cape Agulhas, putting out from Table Bay,
+    They started trading North again, as steamers do to-day.
+    They dealt in gold and ivory and ostrich feathers too,
+    With a little private trading by the officers and crew,
+    Till rounding Guardafui, steering up for Aden town,
+    The tall Phoenician Captain called the First Lieutenant down.
+    "By all the Tyrian purple robes that you will never wear,
+    By the Temples of Zimbabwe, by King Solomon I swear,
+    The ship is like a stable, like a Carthaginian sty.
+    I am Captain here--confound you!--or I'll know the reason why.
+    Every sailor in the galley has a monkey or a goat;
+    There are parrots in the eyes of her and serpents in the boat.
+    By the roaring fire of Baal, I'll not have it any more:
+    Heave them over by the sunset, or I'll hang you at the fore!"
+    "What is that, sir? _Not_ as cargo? _Not_ a bit of private trade?
+    Well, of all the dumbest idiots you're the dumbest ever made,
+    Standing there and looking silly: _leave the animals alone_."
+    (Sailors with a tropic liver always have a brutal tone.)
+    "By the crescent of Astarte, I am not religious--yet--
+    I would sooner spill the table salt than kill a sailor's pet."
+
+
+
+
+A HYMN OF DISGUST
+
+
+
+
+A HYMN OF DISGUST.
+
+
+        You wrote a pretty hymn of Hate,
+        That won the Kaiser's praise,
+        Which showed your nasty mental state,
+        And made us laugh for days.
+        I can't compete with such as you
+        In doggerel of mine,
+        But this is certain--_and_ it's true,
+        You bloody-handed swine--
+
+    We do not mouth a song of hate, or talk about you--much,
+    We do not mention things like you--it wouldn't be polite;
+    One doesn't talk in drawing-rooms of Prussian dirt and such,
+    We only want to kill you off--so roll along and fight.
+
+    For men like you with filthy minds, you leave a nasty taste,
+    We can't forget your triumphs with the girls you met in France.
+    By your standards of morality, gorillas would be chaste,
+    And you consummate your triumphs with the bayonet and the lance.
+
+    You give us mental pictures of your officers at play,
+    With naked girls a-dancing on the table as you dine,
+    With their mothers cut to pieces, in the knightly German way,
+    In the corners of the guard-room in a pool of blood and wine.
+
+    You had better stay in Germany, and never go abroad,
+    For wherever you may wander you will find your fame has gone,
+    For you are outcasts from the lists, with rust upon your sword--
+    The blood of many innocents--of children newly born.
+
+    You are bestial men and beastly, and we would not ask you home
+    To meet our wives and daughters, for we doubt that you are clean;
+    You will find your fame in front of you wherever you may roam,
+    You--who came through burning Belgium with the ladies for a screen.
+
+    You--who love to hear the screaming of a girl beneath the knife,
+    In the midst of your companions, with their craning, eager necks;
+    When you crown your German mercy, and you take a sobbing life--
+    You are not exactly gentlemen towards the gentle sex.
+
+    With your rapings in the market-place and slaughter of the weak,
+    With your gross and leering conduct, and your utter lack of shame,--
+    When we note in all your doings such a nasty yellow streak,
+    You show surprise at our disgust, and say you're not to blame.
+
+    We don't want any whinings, and we'd sooner wait for peace
+    Till you realise your position, and you know you whine in vain;
+    And you stand within a circle of the Cleaner World's Police,
+    And we goad you into charging--and we clean the world again.
+
+    For you should know that never shall you meet us as before,
+    That none will take you by the hand or greet you as a friend;
+    So stay with it, and finish it--who brought about the War--
+    And when you've paid for all you've done--well, that will be the End.
+
+
+
+
+A TRINITY
+
+
+
+
+A TRINITY.
+
+
+       The way of a ship at racing speed
+       In a bit of a rising gale,
+       The way of a horse of the only breed
+       At a Droxford post-and-rail,
+       The way of a brand-new aeroplane
+       On a frosty winter dawn.
+            You'll come back to those again;
+            Wheel or cloche or slender rein
+            Will keep you young and clean and sane,
+              And glad that you were born.
+
+    The power and drive beneath me now are above the power of kings,
+    It's mine the word that lets her loose and in my ear she sings--
+      "Mark now the way I sport and play with the rising hunted sea,
+      Across my grain in cold disdain their ranks are hurled at me;
+      But down my wake is a foam-white lake, the remnant of their line,
+      That broke and died beneath my pride--your foemen, man, and mine."
+    The perfect tapered hull below is a dream of line and curve,
+    An artist's vision in steel and bronze for gods and men to serve.
+    If ever a statue came to life, you quivering slender thing,
+    It ought to be you--my racing girl--as the Amazon song you sing.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Down the valley and up the slope we run from scent to view.
+    "Steady, you villain--you know too much--I'm not so wild as you;
+    You'll get me cursed if you catch him first--there's at least
+       a mile to go,
+    So swallow your pride and ease your stride, and take your fences slow.
+    Your high-pricked ears as the jump appears are comforting
+       things to see;
+    Your easy gallop and bending neck are signals flying to me.
+    You wouldn't refuse if it was wire with calthrops down in front,
+    And there we are with a foot to spare--you best of all the Hunt!"
+          Great sloping shoulders galloping strong, and a yard
+       of floating tail,
+          A fine old Irish gentleman, and a Hampshire post-and-rail.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The sun on the fields a mile below is glinting off the grass
+    That slides along like a rolling map as under the clouds I pass.
+    The early shadows of byre and hedge are dwindling dark below
+    As up the stair of the morning air on my idle wheels I go,--
+          Nothing to do but let her alone--she's flying herself to-day;
+          Unless I chuck her about a bit--there isn't a bump or sway.
+          So _there's_ a bank at ninety-five--and here's a spin and
+             a spiral dive,
+              And here we are again.
+    And _that's_ a roll and twist around, and that's the sky and there's
+       the ground,
+              And I and the aeroplane
+    Are doing a glide, but upside down, and that's a village and that's
+       a town--
+              And now we're rolling back.
+    And _this_ is the way we climb and stall and sit up and beg on
+       nothing at all,
+              The wires and strainers slack.
+    And now we'll try and be good some more, and open the throttle
+       and hear her roar
+              And steer for London Town.
+    For there never a pilot yet was born who flew a machine on a
+       frosty morn
+              But started stunting soon,
+    To feel if his wires were really there, or whether he flew
+       on ice or air,
+    Or whether his hands were gloved or bare,
+              Or he sat in a free balloon.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE MORNING
+
+
+
+
+IN THE MORNING.
+
+
+        Back from battle, torn and rent,
+          Listing bridge and stanchions bent
+                By the angry sea.
+          By Thy guiding mercy sent,
+          Fruitful was the road we went--
+                Back from battle we.
+
+    If Thou hadst not been, O Lord, behind our feeble arm,
+    If Thy hand had not been there to slam the lyddite home,
+    When against us men arose and sought to work us harm,
+    We had gone to death, O Lord, in spouting rings of foam.
+
+          Heaving sea and cloudy sky
+          Saw the battle flashing by
+              As Thy foemen ran.
+          By Thy grace, that made them fly,
+          We have seen two hundred die
+              Since the fight began.
+
+    If our cause had not been Thine, for Thy eternal Right,
+    If the foe in place of us had fought for Thee, O Lord!
+    If Thou hadst not guided us and drawn us there to fight,
+    We never should have closed with them--Thy seas are dark and broad.
+
+          Through the iron rain they fled,
+          Bearing home the tale of dead,
+              Flying from Thy sword.
+          After-hatch to fo'c'sle head,
+          We have turned their decks to red,
+              By Thy help, O Lord!
+
+    It was not by our feeble sword that they were overthrown,
+    But Thy right hand that dashed them down, the servants of the proud;
+    It was not arm of ours that saved, but Thine, O Lord, alone,
+    When down the line the guns began, and sang Thy praise aloud.
+
+          Sixty miles of running fight,
+          Finished at the dawning light,
+              Off the Zuider Zee.
+          Thou that helped throughout the night
+          Weary hand and aching sight,
+              Praise, O Lord, to Thee.
+
+
+
+
+IN FORTY WEST
+
+
+
+
+IN FORTY WEST.
+
+
+    We are coming from the ranch, from the city and the mine,
+    And the word has gone before us to the towns upon the Rhine;
+            As the rising of the tide
+            On the Old-World side,
+        We are coming to the battle, to the Line.
+
+    From the valleys of Virginia, from the Rockies in the North,
+    We are coming by battalions, for the word was carried forth:
+            "We have put the pen away,
+            And the sword is out to-day,
+        For the Lord has loosed the Vintages of Wrath."
+
+    We are singing in the ships as they carry us to fight,
+    As our fathers sang before us by the camp-fires' light;
+            In the wharf-light glare
+            They can hear us Over There,
+        When the ships come steaming through the night.
+
+    Right across the deep Atlantic where the _Lusitania_ passed,
+    With the battle-flag of Yankeeland a-floating at the mast,
+            We are coming all the while,
+            Over twenty hundred mile,
+        And were staying to the finish, to the last.
+
+    We are many--we are one--and we're in it overhead,
+    We are coming as an Army that has seen its women dead,
+            And the old Rebel Yell
+            Will be loud above the shell
+        When we cross the top together, seeing red.
+
+
+
+
+A RING AXIOM
+
+
+
+
+A RING AXIOM.
+
+
+    When the pitiless gong rings out again, and they whip your chair away,
+    When you feel you'd like to take the floor, whatever the crowd
+       should say,
+    When the hammering gloves come back again, and the world goes round
+       your head,
+    When you know your arms are only wax, your hands of useless lead,
+    When you feel you'd give your heart and soul for a chance to clinch
+       and rest,
+    And through your brain the whisper comes,
+       "Give in, you've done your best,"--
+           Why, stiffen your knees and brace your back, and take my
+               word as true--
+           _If the man in front has got you weak, he's just as
+               tired as you_.
+           He can't attack through a gruelling fight and finish
+               as he began;
+           He's done more work than you to-day--you're just as fine a man.
+           So call your last reserve of pluck--he's careless
+               with his chin--
+           You'll put it across him every time--Go in--Go in--_Go in_!
+
+
+
+
+THE QUARTERMASTER
+
+
+
+
+THE QUARTERMASTER.
+
+
+    I mustn't look up from the compass-card, nor look at the seas at all,
+    I must watch the helm and compass-card,--If I heard the trumpet-call
+    Of Gabriel sounding Judgment Day to dry the Seas again,
+    I must hold her bow to windward now till I'm relieved again--
+              To the pipe and wail of a tearing gale,
+                   Carrying Starboard Ten.
+
+    I must stare and frown at the compass-card, that chases round the bowl,
+    North and South and back again with every lurching roll.
+    By the feel of the ship beneath I know the way she's going to swing,
+    But I mustn't look up to the booming wind however the halliards sing--
+              In a breaking sea with the land a-lee,
+                   Carrying Starboard Ten.
+
+    And I stoop to look at the compass-card as closes in the night,
+    For it's hard to see by the shaded glow of half a candle-light;
+    But the spokes are bright, and I note beside in the corner of my eye
+    A shimmer of light on oilskin wet that shows the Owner nigh--
+              Foggy and thick and a windy trick,
+                   Carrying Starboard Ten.
+
+    Heave and sway or dive and roll can never disturb me now;
+    Though seas may sweep in rivers of foam across the straining bow,
+    I've got my eyes on the compass-card, and though she broke her keel
+    And hit the bottom beneath us now, you'd find me at the wheel--
+              In Davy's realm, still at the helm,
+                   Carrying Starboard Ten.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE BARRED ZONE
+
+
+
+
+IN THE BARRED ZONE.
+
+
+    They called us up from England at the breaking of the day,
+    And the wireless whisper caught us from a hundred leagues away--
+            "Sentries at the Outer Line,
+             All that hold the countersign,
+    Listen in the North Sea--news for you to-day."
+
+    All across the waters, at the paling of the morn,
+    The wireless whispered softly ere the summer day was born--
+            "Be you near or ranging far,
+             By the Varne or Weser bar,
+    The Fleet is out and steaming to the Eastward and the dawn."
+
+    Far and away to the North and West, in the dancing glare of the
+       sunlit ocean,
+    Just a haze, a shimmer of smoke-cloud, grew and broadened many a mile;
+    Low and long and faint and spreading, banner and van of a
+       world in motion,
+    Creeping out to the North and West, it hung in the skies alone awhile.
+
+    Then from over the brooding haze the roar of murmuring engines swelled,
+    And the men of the air looked down to us, a mile below their feet;
+    Down the wind they passed above, their course to the silver
+       sun-track held,
+    And we looked back to the West again, and saw the English Fleet.
+
+    Over the curve of the rounded sea, in ordered lines as the
+       ranks of Rome,
+    Over the far horizon steamed a power that held us dumb,--
+    Miles of racing lines of steel that flattened the sea to a
+       field of foam,
+            Rolling deep to the wash they made,
+            We saw, to the threat of a German blade,
+            The Shield of England come.
+
+
+
+
+WHO CARES?
+
+
+
+
+WHO CARES?
+
+
+           The sentries at the Castle Gate,
+           We hold the outer wall,
+           That echoes to the roar of hate
+           And savage bugle-call--
+    Of those that seek to enter in with steel and eager flame,
+    To leave you with but eyes to weep the day the Germans came.
+
+           Though we may catch from out the Keep
+           A whining voice of fear,
+           Of one who whispers "Rest and sleep,
+           And lay aside the spear,"
+    We pay no heed to such as he, as soft as we are hard;
+    We take our word from men alone--the men that rule the guard.
+
+           We hear behind us now and then
+           The voices of the grooms,
+           And bickerings of serving-men
+           Come faintly from the rooms;
+    But let them squabble as they please, we will not turn aside,
+    But--curse to think it was for them that fighting men have died.
+
+           Whatever they may say or try,
+           We shall not pay them heed;
+           And though they wail and talk and lie,
+           We hold our simple Creed--
+    No matter what the cravens say, however loud the din,
+    Our Watch is on the Castle Gate, and none shall enter in.
+
+
+
+
+THE UNCHANGING SEX
+
+
+
+
+THE UNCHANGING SEX.
+
+
+    When the battle-worn Horatius, 'midst the cheering Roman throng--
+    All flushed with pride and triumph as they carried him along--
+    Reached the polished porch of marble at the doorway of his home,
+    He felt himself an Emperor--the bravest man of Rome.
+    The people slapped him on the back and knocked his helm askew,
+    Then drifted back along the road to look for something new.
+    Then Horatius sobered down a bit--as you would do to-day--
+    And straightened down his tunic in a calm, collected way.
+    He hung his battered helmet up and wiped his sandals dry,
+    And set a parting in his hair--the same as you and I.
+    His lady kissed him carefully and looked him up and down,
+    And gently disengaged his arm to spare her snowy gown.
+    "You _are_ a real disgrace, you know, the worst I've ever seen;
+    Now go and put your sword away, I _know_ it isn't clean.
+    And you must change your clothes at once, you're simply wringing wet;
+    You've been doing something mischievous, I hope you lost your bet....
+    Why! you're bleeding on the carpet. Who's the brute that hurt you so?
+    Did you kill him? _There's a darling!_ Serve him right for
+       hitting low."
+    Then she hustled lots of water, turning back her pretty sleeves,
+    And she set him on the sofa (having taken off his greaves).
+    And bold Horatius purred aloud, the stern Horatius smiled,
+    And didn't seem to mind that he was treated like a child.
+    Though she didn't call him Emperor, or cling to him and cry,
+    Yet I rather think he liked it--just the same as you and I.
+
+
+
+
+LOOKING AFT
+
+
+
+
+LOOKING AFT.
+
+
+        I'm the donkey-man of a dingy tramp
+            They launched in 'Eighty-one,
+    Rickety, old, and leaky too--but some o' the rivets are shining new
+            Beneath our after-gun.
+
+        An' she an' meself are off to sea
+            From out o' the breaker's hands,
+    An' we laugh to find such an altered game, for devil a thing we
+       found the same
+            When we came off the land.
+
+        We used to carry a freight of trash
+            That younger ships would scorn,
+    But now we're running a decent trade--howitzer-shell and hand-grenade,
+            Or best Alberta corn.
+
+        We used to sneak an' smouch along
+            Wi' rusty side an' rails,
+    Hoot an' bellow of liners proud--"Give us the room that we're allowed;
+            Get out o' the track--the Mails!"
+
+        We sometimes met--an' took their wash--
+            The 'aughty ships o' war,
+    An' we dips to them--an' they to us--an' on they went in a
+       tearin' fuss,
+            But now they count us more.
+
+        For now we're "England's Hope and Pride"--
+            The Mercantile Marine,--
+    "Bring us the goods and food we lack, because we're hungry,
+       Merchant Jack"
+            (As often I have been).
+
+        "You're the man to save us now,
+            We look to you to win;
+    Wot'd yer like? A rise o' pay? We'll give whatever you like to say,
+            But bring the cargoes in."
+
+        An' here we are in the danger zone,
+            Wi' escorts all around,
+    Destroyers a-racing to and fro--"We will show you the way to go,
+            An' guide you safe an' sound."
+
+        "An' did you cross in a comfy way,
+            Or did you have to run?
+    An' is the patch on your hull we see the mark of a bump
+       in 'Ninety-three,
+            Or the work of a German gun?"
+
+        "We'll lead you now, and keep beside,
+            An' call to all the Fleet,
+    Clear the road and sweep us in--he carries a freight we need to win,
+            A golden load of wheat."
+
+        Yes, we're the hope of England now,
+            And rank wi' the Navy too;
+    An' all the papers speak us fair--"Nothing he will not lightly dare,
+            Nothing he fears to do."
+
+        "Be polite to Merchant Jack,
+            Who brings you in the meat,
+    For if he went on a striking lay, you'd have to go on your
+       knees and pray,
+            With never a bone to eat."
+
+        But you can lay your papers down
+            An' set your fears aside,
+    For we will keep the ocean free--we o' the clean an' open sea--
+            To break the German pride.
+
+        We won't go canny or strike for pay,
+            Or say we need a rest;
+    But you get on wi' the blinkin' War--an' not so much o' your
+       strikes ashore,
+            Or givin' the German best.
+
+
+
+
+A MAXIM
+
+
+
+
+A MAXIM.
+
+
+    When the foe is pressing and the shells come down
+    In a stream like maxim fire,
+    When the long grey ranks seem to thicken all the while,
+    And they stamp on the last of the wire,
+    When all along the line comes a whisper on the wind
+    That you hear through the drumming of the guns:
+    "They are through over there and the right is in the air,
+    And there isn't any end to the Huns,"--
+    Then keep along a-shooting till you can't shoot more,
+    And hit 'em with a shovel on the head.
+    Don't forget a lot of folk have beaten them before,
+    And a Hun'll never hurt you if he's dead.
+    If you're in a hole and your hopes begin to fail,
+    If you're in a losing fight,
+    Think a bit of Jonah in the belly of the whale,
+    _'Cause-he-got-out-all-right_.
+
+
+
+
+THE CRISIS
+
+
+
+
+THE CRISIS.
+
+
+    When the Spartan heroes tried
+      To hold the broken gate,
+    When--roaring like the rising tide--
+    The Persian horsemen charged and died
+      In foaming waves of hate.
+
+    When with armour hacked and torn
+      They gripped their shields of brass,
+    And hailed the gods that light the morn
+    With battle-cry of hope forlorn,
+      "We shall not let them pass."
+
+    While they combed their hair for death
+      Before the Persian line,
+    They spoke awhile with easy breath,
+    "What think ye the Athenian saith
+      In Athens as they dine?"
+
+    "Doth he repent that we alone
+      Are here to hold the way,
+    That he must reap what he hath sown--
+    That only valour may atone
+      The fault of yesterday?
+
+    "Is he content that thou and I--
+      Three hundred men in line--
+    Should show him thus how man may try
+    To stay the foemen passing by
+      To Athens, where they dine?
+
+    "Ah! now the clashing cymbal rings,
+      The mighty host is nigh;
+    Let Athens talk of passing things--
+    But here, three hundred Spartan kings
+    Shall greet the fame the Persian brings
+      To men about to die."
+
+
+
+
+A SEA CHANTY
+
+
+
+
+A SEA CHANTY.
+
+
+    There's a whistle of the wind in the rigging overhead,
+            And the tune is as plain as can be.
+      "Hey! down below there--d'you know it's going to blow there,
+                All across the cold North Sea?"
+
+    And along comes the gale from the locker in the North
+            By the Storm-King's hand set free,
+      And the wind and the snow and the sleet come forth,
+                Let loose to the cold North Sea.
+
+    Tumble out the oilskins, the seas are running white,
+            There's a wet watch due for me,
+      For we're heading to the east, and a long wet night
+                As we drive at the cold North Sea.
+
+    See the water foaming as the waves go by
+            Like the tide on the sands of Dee;
+      Hear the gale a-piping in the halliards high
+                To the tune of the cold North Sea.
+
+    See how she's meeting them, plunging all the while,
+            Till I'm wet to the sea-boot knee;
+      See how she's beating them--twenty to the mile--
+                The waves of the cold North Sea.
+
+    Right across from Helgoland to meet the English coast,
+            Lie better than the likes of we,--
+      Men that lived in many ways, but went to join the host
+                That are buried by the cold North Sea.
+
+    Rig along the life-lines, double-stay the rails,
+            Lest the Storm-King call for a fee;
+      For if any man should slip, through the rolling of the ship,
+                He'd be lost in the cold North Sea.
+
+    We are heading to the gale, and the driving of the sleet,
+            And we're far to the east of Three.
+      Hey! you German sailormen, here's the British Fleet
+                Waiting in the cold North Sea.
+
+
+
+
+A.D. 400
+
+
+
+
+A.D. 400.
+
+
+    A long low ship from the Orkneys' sailed,
+          With a full gale driving her along,
+    Three score sailormen singing as they baled
+          To the tune of a Viking song--
+
+                _We have a luck-charm
+                Carved on the tiller,
+                Cut in the fore-room
+                See we Thor's Hammer;
+                Gods will protect us
+                Under a shield-burgh,
+                Carved in the mast we--
+                The Runes of Yggdrasil!_
+
+    But the Earl called down from the kicking tiller-head,
+      "Six hands lay along to me!
+    Tumble out the hawsers there, Skallagrim the Red!
+      For a battle with a Berserk sea;
+    Sing a song of work, of a well-stayed mast,
+      Of clinch and rivet and pine,
+    Of a bull's-hide sail we can carry to the last
+      Of a well-built ship like mine.
+    Never mind the Runes on the bending tree
+      Or the charms on the tiller that I hold,
+    Trust to your hands and the Makers of the Sea,
+      To the gods of the Viking bold!
+
+                _Thor of the Hammer--
+                King of the Warriors,
+                We are not thralls here
+                --Men of the sea;
+                We are not idle,
+                Fight we as seamen,
+                Worthy your aid then
+                --Men of the Sea!"_
+
+
+
+
+OVERDUE
+
+
+
+
+OVERDUE.
+
+
+    In the evening--in the sunset--when the long day dies,
+      Out across the broad Atlantic, where the great seas go,
+    When the Golden Gates are open and the sunlight flies,
+      The fairy Islands drift and fade against the crimson glow.
+
+    In the evening, when the fiery sun was sinking in the West,
+      St Brandan and the chosen few went sailing out to sea,--
+    To the Westward--to the sunset--to the Golden Isle of rest,
+      The haven of the weary men, the land of Fairie.
+
+    Is it only in the sunset we may find the Golden Fleece?
+      Is it only to the Westward that the Fairyland is found?
+    And those who went away from us and passed from war to peace--
+      Are they looking still for Fairyland the wide world round?
+
+    Then as I gazed across the dark the morning answer came--
+      To Eastward stretched the golden sea for many a golden mile;
+    The far horizon joined the sky in dancing lines of flame--
+      And drifting on the seas of dawn, I saw St Brandan's Isle.
+
+
+    PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's On Patrol, by John Graham Bower and Klaxon
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41944 ***