  WET SHIPS."... And will remain on your Patrol till the 8th December...."—(Extract from Orders.) THE North-East Wind came armed and shod from the ice-locked Baltic shore, The seas rose up in the track he made, and the rollers raced before; He sprang on the Wilhelmshaven ships that reeled across the tide. "Do you cross the sea to-night with me?" the cold North-Easter cried— Along the lines of anchored craft the Admiral's answer flashed, And loud the proud North-Easter laughed as the second anchors splashed. "By God! you're right—you German men, with a three-day gale to blow, It is better to wait by your harbour gate than follow where I go!" Over the Bight to the open sea the great wind sang as he sheered: "I rule—I rule the Northern waste—I speak, and the seas are cleared; You nations all whose harbours ring the edge of my Northern sea, At peace or war, when you hear my voice you shall know no Lord but me." Then into the wind in a cloud of foam and sheets of rattling spray, Head to the bleak and breaking seas in dingy black and grey, Taking it every lurch and roll in tons of icy green Came out to her two-year-old patrol—an English submarine. The voice of the wind rose up and howled through squalls of driving white: "You'll know my power, you English craft, before you make the Bight; I rule—I rule this Northern Sea, that I raise and break to foam. Whom do you call your Overlord that dares me in my home?" Over the crest of a lifting sea in bursting shells of spray, She showed the flash of her rounded side as over to port she lay, Clanging her answer up the blast that made her wireless sing: "I serve the Lord of the Seven Seas. Ha! Splendour of God—the King!!" Twenty feet of her bow came out, dripping and smooth it sprang, Over the valley of green below as her stamping engines rang; Then down she fell till the waters rose to meet her straining rails— "I serve my King, who sends me here to meet your winter gales." (Rank upon rank the seas swept on and broke to let her through, While high above her reeling bridge their shattered remnants flew); "If you blow the stars from the sky to-night, your boast in your teeth I'll fling, I am your master—Overlord, and—Dog of the English King!" |
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