So, times past all number deceived by false shows,
Deceiving we cumber the road of our foes,
For this is our virtue: to track and betray;
Preparing great battles a sea’s width away.
Now peace is at end and our peoples take heart,
For the laws are clean gone that restrainèd our art;
Up and down the near headlands and against the far wind
We are loosed (O be swift!) to the work of our kind!
THE DESTROYERS
The strength of twice three thousand horse
That seek the single goal;
The line that holds the rending course,
The hate that swings the whole:
The stripped hulls, slinking through the gloom,
At gaze and gone again—
The Brides of Death that wait the groom—
The Choosers of the Slain!
Offshore where sea and skyline blend
In rain, the daylight dies;
The sullen, shouldering swells attend
Night and our sacrifice.
Adown the stricken capes no flare—
No mark on spit or bar,—
Girdled and desperate we dare
The blindfold game of war.
Nearer the up-flung beams that spell
The council of our foes;
Clearer the barking guns that tell
Their scattered flank to close.
Sheer to the trap they crowd their way
From ports for this unbarred.
Quiet, and count our laden prey,
The convoy and her guard!
On shoal with scarce a foot below,
Where rock and islet throng,
Hidden and hushed we watch them throw
Their anxious lights along.
Not here, not here your danger lies—
(Stare hard, O hooded eyne!)
Save where the dazed rock-pigeons rise
The lit cliffs give no sign.
Therefore—to break the rest ye seek,
The Narrow Seas to clear—
Hark to the siren’s whimpering shriek—
The driven death is here!
Look to your van a league away,—
What midnight terror stays
The bulk that checks against the spray
Her crackling tops ablaze?
Hit, and hard hit! The blow went home,
The muffled, knocking stroke—
The steam that overruns the foam—
The foam that thins to smoke—
The smoke that clokes the deep aboil—
The deep that chokes her throes
Till, streaked with ash and sleeked with oil,
The lukewarm whirlpools close!