| |
| WHEN the water’s countenance | |
| Blurrs ’twixt glance and second glance; | |
| Then our tattered smokes forerun | |
| Ashen ’neath a silvered sun; | |
| When the curtain of the haze | 5 |
| Shuts upon our helpless ways— | |
| Hear the Channel Fleet at sea: | |
| Libera nos Domine! | |
| |
| When the engines’ bated pulse | |
| Scarcely thrills the nosing hulls; | 10 |
| When the wash along the side | |
| Sounds, a-sudden, magnified; | |
| When the intolerable blast | |
| Marks each blindfold minute passed; | |
| |
| When the fog-buoy’s squattering flight | 15 |
| Guides us through the haggard night; | |
| When the warning bugle blows; | |
| When the lettered doorways close; | |
| When our brittle townships press, | |
| Impotent, on emptiness; | 20 |
| |
| When the unseen leadsmen lean | |
| Questioning a deep unseen; | |
| When their lessened count they tell | |
| To a bridge invisible; | |
| When the hid and perilous | 25 |
| Cliffs return our cry to us; | |
| |
| When the treble thickness spread | |
| Swallows up our next-ahead; | |
| When her siren’s frightened whine | |
| Shows her sheering out of line; | 30 |
| When—her passage undiscerned— | |
| We must turn where she has turned, | |
| Hear the Channel Fleet at sea: | |
| Libera nos Domine! | |
| |
