Kilmeny

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.