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 sea's width away. The pot-bellied merchant foreboding no wrong Copyright, 1899, by Rudyard Kipling. CRUISERS And when we have wakened the lust of a foe, So, when we have spied on the path of their host, Anon we return, being gathered again, The bitter salt spindrift: the sun-glare likewise: As maidens awaiting the bride to come forth "What see ye? Their signals, or levin afar? "What hear ye? God's thunder, or guns of our war? CRUISERS "What mark ye? Their smoke, or the cloud-rack outblown ? "What chase ye? Their lights, or the Day-star low down?" So, times past all number deceived by false shows, For this is our virtue: to track and betray; Now peace is at end and our peoples take heart, We are loosed (O be swift ! ) to the work of our kind ! THE DESTROYERS The strength of twice three thousand horse The line that holds the rending course, The hate that swings the whole: The stripped hulls, slinking through the gloom, The Brides of Death that wait the groom- Offshore where sea and skyline blend In rain, the daylight dies; The sullen, shouldering swells attend Adown the stricken capes no flare No mark on spit or bar, Girdled and desperate we dare The blindfold game of war. THE DESTROYERS Nearer the up-flung beams that spell Clearer the barking guns that tell Sheer to the trap they crowd their way Quiet, and count our laden prey, On shoal with scarce a foot below, Hidden and hushed we watch them throw 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! Look to your van a league away, What midnight terror stays The bulk that checks against the spray |