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قراءة كتاب On Patrol
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
اللغة: English
الصفحة رقم: 2
DISGUST
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
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,
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?"