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.