The North Sea Patrol

Where the East wind is brewed fresh and fresh every morning,
And the balmy night-breezes blow straight from the Pole,
I heard a Destroyer sing: "What an enjoyable life does one lead on the North Sea Patrol!

"To blow things to bits is our business (and Fritz's),
Which means there are mine-fields wherever you stroll.
Unless you've particular wish to die quick, you'll avoid steering close to the North Sea Patrol.

"We warn from disaster the mercantile master
Who takes in high Dudgeon our life-saving role,
For every one's grousing at Docking and Dowsing
The marks and the lights on the North Sea Patrol."

[Twelve verses omitted.]

So swept but surviving, half drowned but still driving
I watched her head out through the swell off the shoal,
And I heard her propellers roar, "Write to poor fellers
Who run such a Hell as the North Sea Patrol!"

Rudyard

Rudyard Kipling was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. His notable works include the novels 'The Jungle Book,' 'Kim,' and the poem 'If—.' Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the United Kingdom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907, making him the youngest recipient of the award.

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The Lowestoft Boat

In Lowestoft a boat was laid,
Mark well what I do say!
And she was built for the herring-trade,
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They gave her Government coal to burn,
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The Merchantmen

King Solomon drew merchantmen,
Because of his desire
For peacocks, apes, and ivory,
From Tarshish unto Tyre,
With cedars out of Lebanon
Which Hiram rafted down;
But we be only sailormen
That use in London town.

Coastwise, cross-seas, round the world and back again,
Where the flaw shall head us or the full Trade suits,
Plain-sail, storm-sail, lay your board and tack again,
And that's the way we'll pay Paddy Doyle for his boots!

We bring no store of ingots,
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And some we got by purchase,
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The Coastwise Lights

Our brows are bound with spindrift and the weed is on our knees;
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From reef and rock and skerry, over headland, ness, and voe,
The Coastwise Lights of England watch the ships of England go!

Through the endless summer evenings, on the lineless, level floors;
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By day the dipping house-flag and by night the rocket's trail,
As the sheep that graze behind us so we know them where they hail.

We bridge across the dark and bid the helmsman have a care,
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The Derelict

I was the staunchest of our fleet
Till the sea rose beneath my feet
Unheralded, in hatred past all measure.
Into his pits he stamped my crew,
Buffeted, blinded, bound and threw,
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Man made me, and my will
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Wrenched as the lips of thirst,
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For life that crammed me full,
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The Rowers

The banked oars fell an hundred strong,
And backed and threshed and ground,
But bitter was the rowers' song
As they brought the war-boat round.


They had no heart for the rally and roar
That makes the whale-bath smoke ,
When the great blades cleave and hold and leave
As one on the racing stroke.


They sang: What reckoning do you keep,
And steer by what star,
If we come unscathed from the Southern deep
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"Last night you swore our voyage was done,
But seaward still we go.
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Farewell And Adieu...

Farewell and adieu to you,
Harwich Ladies,
Farewell and adieu to you, ladies ashore!
For we've received orders to work to the eastward
Where we hope in a short time to strafe 'em some more.
We'll duck and we'll dive like little tin turtles,
We'll duck and we'll dive underneath the North Seas,
Until we strike something that doesn't expect us.
From here to Cuxhaven it's go as you please!
The first thing we did was to dock in a minefield,
Which isn't a place where repairs should be done;
And there we lay doggo in twelve-fathom water
With tri-nitro-toluol hogging our run.
The next thing we did, we rose under a Zeppelin,
With his shiny big belly half blocking the sky.
But what in the Heavens can you do with six-pounders?
So we fired what we had and we bade him good...

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