Dark, dark lay the drifters, against the red west, As they shot their long meshes of steel overside; And the oily green waters were rocking to rest When _Kilmeny_ went out, at the turn of the tide. And nobody knew where that lassie would roam, For the magic that called her was tapping unseen, It was well nigh a week ere _Kilmeny_ came home, And nobody knew where _Kilmeny_ had been. She'd a gun at her bow that was Newcastle's best, And a gun at her stern that was fresh from the Clyde, And a secret her skipper had never confessed, Not even at dawn, to his newly wed bride; And a wireless that whispered above like a gnome, The laughter of London, the boasts of Berlin. O, it may have been mermaids that lured her from home, But nobody knew where _Kilmeny_ had been. It was dark when _Kilmeny_ came home from her quest, With her bridge dabbled red where her skipper had died; But she moved like a bride with a rose at her breast; And "Well done, Kilmeny!" the admiral cried. Now at sixty-four fathom a conger may come, And nose at the bones of a drowned submarine; But late in the evening _Kilmeny_ came home, And nobody knew where _Kilmeny_ had been. There's a wandering shadow that stares at the foam, Though they sing all the night to old England, their queen, Late, late in the evening _Kilmeny_ came home, And nobody knew where _Kilmeny_ had been. _Alfred Noyes_ THE MINE-SWEEPERS Dawn off the Foreland--the young flood making Jumbled and short and steep-- Black in the hollows and bright where it's breaking-- Awkward water to sweep. "Mines reported in the fairway, Warn all traffic and detain. Sent up _Unity_, _Claribel_, _Assyrian_, _Stormcock_, and _Golden Gain_." Noon off the Foreland--the first ebb making Lumpy and strong in the bight. Boom after boom, and the golf-hut shaking And the jackdaws wild with fright. "Mines located in the fairway, Boats now working up the chain, Sweepers--_Unity_, _Claribel_, _Assyrian_, _Stormcock_, and _Golden Gain_." Dusk off the Foreland--the last light going And the traffic crowding through, And five damned trawlers with their syreens blowing Heading the whole review! "Sweep completed in the fairway. No more mines remain. Sent back _Unity_, _Claribel_, _Assyrian_, _Stormcock_, and _Golden Gain_." Rudyard Kipling_ MARE LIBERUM You dare to say with perjured lips, "We fight to make the ocean free"? _You_, whose black trail of butchered ships Bestrews the bed of every sea Where German submarines have wrought Their horrors! Have you never thought,-- What you call freedom, men call piracy! Unnumbered ghosts that haunt the wave Where you have murdered, cry you down; And seamen whom you would not save, Weave now in weed-grown depths a crown Of shame for your imperious head,-- A dark memorial of the dead,-- Women and children whom you left to drown.