CRUISERS

As our mother the Frigate, bepainted and fine, Made play for her bully the Ship of the Line; So we, her bold daughters by iron and fire, Accost and decoy to our masters' desire.

Now pray you consider what toils we endure, Night-walking wet sea-lanes, a guard and a lure;

Since half of our trade is that same pretty sort As mettlesome wenches do practise in port.

For this is our office: to spy and make room,
As hiding yet guiding the foe to their doom;
Surrounding, confounding, to bait and betray
And tempt them to battle the seas' width

away.

The pot-bellied merchant foreboding no wrong
With headlight and sidelight he lieth along,
Till, lightless and lightfoot and lurking, leap we
To force him discover his business by sea.

Copyright, 1899, by Rudyard Kipling

And when we have wakened the lust of a foe,
To draw him by flight toward our bullies we go,
Till, 'ware of strange smoke stealing nearer, he
flies-

Or our bullies close in for to make him good prize.

So, when we have spied on the path of their host,
One flieth to carry that word to the coast;
And, lest by false doubling they turn and go free,
One lieth behind them to follow and see.

Anon we return, being gathered again,
Across the sad valleys all drabbled with rain—
Across the grey ridges all crispèd and curled—
To join the long dance round the curve of the
world.

The bitter salt spindrift: the sun-glare likewise:
The moon-track a-quiver bewilders our eyes,
Where, linking and lifting, our sisters we hail
'Twixt wrench of cross-surges or plunge of head-
gale.

As maidens awaiting the bride to come forth Make play with light jestings and wit of no

worth,

So, widdershins circling the bride-bed of death, Each fleereth her neighbour and signeth and saith:

"What see ye? Their signals, or levin afar? "What hear ye? God's thunder, or guns of

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our war?

'What mark ye? Their smoke, or the cloudrack outblown?

"What chase ye? Their lights, or the Daystar low down?"

So, times past all number deceived by false shows,

Deceiving we cumber the road of our foes,

For this is our virtue: to track and betray;
Preparing great battles a sea's width away.

Now peace is at end and our peoples take heart, For the laws are clean gone that restrained our art;

Up and down the near headlands and against the

far wind

We are loosed (O be swift!) to the work of our

kind!

THE DESTROYERS

The strength of twice three thousand horse
That seek the single goal;

The line that holds the rending course,

The hate that swings the whole:

The stripped hulls, slinking through the gloom, At gaze and gone again—

The Brides of Death that wait the groom

The Choosers of the Slain!

Offshore where sea and skyline blend

In rain, the daylight dies;

The sullen, shouldering swells attend
Night and our sacrifice.

Adown the stricken capes no flare

No mark on spit or bar,

Girdled and desperate we dare

The blindfold game of war.

Nearer the up-flung beams that spell

The council of our foes;

Clearer the barking guns that tell
Their scattered flank to close.
Sheer to the trap they crowd their way
From ports for this unbarred.
Quiet, and count our laden prey
The convoy and her guard!

On shoal with scarce a foot below,
Where rock and islet throng,

Hidden and hushed we watch them throw
Their anxious lights along.

Not here, not here your danger lies-
(Stare hard, O hooded eyne!)
Save where the dazed rock-pigeons rise
The lit cliffs give no sign.

Therefore-to break the rest ye seek,

The Narrow Seas to clear

Hark to the syren's whimpering shriekThe driven death is here!