On Patrol

by John Graham Bower

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);