As we turned the Elbow Ledges—felt the engines ease to "Slow."
Rusty side and dingy paintwork, stripped for war and cleared for battle—
Saw the harbour-tugs around us—smelt the English fields again,—
English fields and English hedges—sheep and horses, English cattle,
Like a screen unrolled before us, through the mist of English rain.
Slowly through the basin entrance—twenty thousand tons a-crawling
With a thousand men aboard her, all a-weary of the War—
Warped her round and laid alongside with the cobble-stones a-calling—
"There's a special train awaiting, just for you to come ashore."
Out again as fell the evening, down the harbour in the gloaming