To the further side of the Channel;
Prayers are said in a hundred fanes
For its godlike soul, and whenever it rains
They muffle its throat with flannel.
Strange indeed is the cry of its shells,
Like a pack of hounds in full wail,
Like the roar of a mountain stream that swells
Or like anything else from a peal of bells
To the bark of a wounded bull-whale.
But the worst of it is that when—and if—