Kilmeny

Dark, dark lay the drifters against the red West,

As they shot their long meshes of steel overside;

And the oily green waters were rocking to rest

When Kilmeny went out, at the turn of the tide;

And nobody knew where that lassie would roam,

For the magic that called her was tapping unseen.

It was well-nigh a week ere Kilmeny came home,

And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

She'd a gun at her bow that was Newcastle's best,

And a gun at her stern that was fresh from the Clyde,

And a secret her skipper had never confessed,

Not even at dawn, to his newly-wed bride;

And a wireless that whispered above, like a gnome,

The laughter of London, the boasts of Berlin. . . .

O, it may have been mermaids that lured her from home;

But nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

It was dark when Kilmeny came home from her quest

With her bridge dabbled red where her skipper had died;

But she moved like a bride with a rose at her breast,

And Well done Kilmeny!  the Admiral cried.

Now, at sixty-four fathom a conger may come

And nose at the bones of a drowned submarine;

But—late in the evening Kilmeny came home,

And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

There's a wandering shadow that stares at the foam,

Though they sing all the night to old England, their queen.

Late, late in the evening, Kilmeny came home;

And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.