Ruskin logs, 1914-1918 / Alfred Ruskin - Page 151
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[Page 151]
The Submarine
A Shadow drifts through the seafloor waves
Where the old armada Sleeps,
Breaking the hush of those ancient graves
Where the war-god his bone watch keeps
From them there was sunshine aglint on the Sea
The heave of the flood-tide swells;
In their white-winged Ships they wander free
With the memory of lost farewells.
Gladly and gaily they went to their doom
With the flutter of Banners bright
Voiceless they sank in the Battle Gloom
With the wreckage adrift from the fight
A Bugle sounded its Charge through the night -
Their Battle-songs answered its call
With a banner aflutter before their eyes
Can you measure the bliss of their fall?
So their curses they heap on the Grey Submarine
When the shadowy ship glides by -
The assassin that lurks in the seaweed green
And hides from the light of the Sky
They met the fox in a fair open fight,
In the dauntless day of yore -
Now wolf-ships in the Shadows of the night
When the Battle-fleet sails from the Shore.