Boreas blows on his high wood whistle,

Over the coppice and down the lane

Where the goldfinch chirps from the haulm of the thistle

And mangolds gleam in the farmer's wain.

Last year's dead and the new year sleeping

Under its mantle of leaves and snow;

Earth holds beauty fast in her keeping

But Life invincible stirs below.

Runs the sap in each root and rhizome,

Primrose yellow and snowdrop cold,

Windyflowers when the chiffchaff flies home,

Lenten lilies with crowns of gold.

Soon the woods will be blithe with bracken,

April whisper of lambs at play;

Spring will triumph—and our old black hen

(Thank the Lord!) will begin to lay.

ALGOL.

The Old Navy wakened and got under way

And hurried to Scapa in battle array,

While the drifters and trawlers looked on from afar

At the cruisers and battleships off to the War;

Having sped their departure with ev'ry good wish,

The drifters and trawlers returned to their fish.

Do you know the sensation, so hard to explain,

Of living a former existence again,

With never a clue to the why or the when?

Well, the drifters and trawlers were feeling it then,

And the sea chuckled deep as it washed to and fro

On the hulls of the battleships up in the Flow.

The Old Navy waited, the Old Navy swore,

While battleships costing two millions and more

Reviewed the position from starboard to port:

"It's small craft again, but we're terribly short;

Let us pray for the Empire whose sun never sets;"

Then the fishing fleet pensively hauled in its nets.

And rolling with laughter, at varying speeds

The New Navy sped to the Old Navy's needs;

Unblushingly paintless, by units or lots,

Came drifters and trawlers and whalers and yachts;

And, heedless of Discipline Acts, I've been told,

The New Navy cheerfully winked at the Old.

Without any pride but the pride of its race,

The New Navy took its historical place

In warfare on quite unconventional lines

As hunting sea vermin or sweeping for mines,

Till the sea would agree when a battleship swore

That surely they'd helped an Old Navy before.

Through Summer and Autumn, through Winter and Spring

The Old Navy patiently guarded the ring.

The while the Auxiliaries out on the blue

Were making the most of the flag that they flew,

And a cruiser would call to her sister, astern,

"Precocious as ever, they've nothing to learn!"

The Old Navy stretched as they got under way

To take the Surrender that fell on a Day,

And the drifters and trawlers looked on from afar

At the cruisers and battleships winning the War,

And, cheering the conquest with ev'ry good wish,

Prepared to go back to their nets and their fish.

But scarce had the fishing fleet time to turn round

When there fell on their ears a remarkable sound,

And some who were present have given their word

That the roll of DRAKE'S drum through the squadrons was heard;

Resulted a sequel as strange as it's true,

The Old Navy solemnly winked at the New.

The moral is simple but worthy of note

Whenever the spirit of DRAKE is afloat,

There's only one Navy when foes come to grips,

And nobody knows it so well as the ships,

And so when the small craft are blessed by the Board,

Demurely they murmur: "New Navy? Oh, Lord!"