THE WET LITANY

When the water’s countenance
Blurrs ’twixt glance and second glance;
When our tattered smokes forerun. 
Ashen ’neath a silvered sun;
When the curtain of the haze
Shuts upon our helpless ways—­
  Hear the Channel Fleet at sea;
  Libera nos Domine!

When the engines’ bated pulse
Scarcely thrills the nosing hulls;
When the wash along the side
Sounds, a sudden, magnified;
When the intolerable blast
Marks each blindfold minute passed;

When the fog-buoy’s squattering flight
Guides us through the haggard night;
When the warning bugle blows;
When the lettered doorways close;
When our brittle townships press,
Impotent, on emptiness;

When the unseen leadsmen lean
Questioning a deep unseen;
When their lessened count they tell
To a bridge invisible;
When the hid and perilous
Cliffs return our cry to us;

When the treble thickness spread
Swallows up our next-ahead;
When her siren’s frightened whine
Shows her sheering out of line;
When, her passage undiscerned,
We must turn where she has turned,
  Hear the Channel Fleet at sea: 
  Libera nos Domine!

THE BALLAD OF MINEPIT SHAW

About the time that taverns shut
  And men can buy no beer,
Two lads went up to the keepers’ hut
  To steal Lord Pelham’s deer.

Night and the liquor was in their heads—­
  They laughed and talked no bounds,
Till they waked the keepers on their beds,
  And the keepers loosed the hounds.

They had killed a hart, they had killed a hind,
  Ready to carry away,
When they heard a whimper down the wind
  And they heard a bloodhound bay.

They took and ran across the fern,
  Their crossbows in their hand,
Till they met a man with a green lantern
  That called and bade ’em stand.

’What are ye doing, O Flesh and Blood,
  And what’s your foolish will,
That you must break into Minepit Wood
  And wake the Folk of the Hill?’

’Oh, we’ve broke into Lord Pelham’s park,
  And killed Lord Pelham’s deer,
And if ever you heard a little dog bark
  You’ll know why we come here.

’We ask you let us go our way,
  As fast as we can flee,
For if ever you heard a bloodhound bay
  You’ll know how pressed we be.’

’Oh, lay your crossbows on the bank
  And drop the knife from your hand,
And though the hounds are at your flank
  I’ll save you where you stand!’

They laid their crossbows on the bank,
  They threw their knives in the wood,
And the ground before them opened and sank
  And saved ’em where they stood.

’Oh, what’s the roaring in our ears
  That strikes us well-nigh dumb?’
’Oh, that is just how things appears
  According as they come.’