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--