John Graham Bower

“ It's mine the word that lets her loose and in my ear she sings— 168
"Mark now the way I sport and play with the rising hunted sea,
Across my grain in cold disdain their ranks are hurled at me;
But down my wake is a foam-white lake, the remnant of their line,
That broke and died beneath my pride—your foemen, man, and mine."
The perfect tapered hull below is a dream of line and curve,
An artist's vision in steel and bronze for gods and men to serve.
If ever a statue came to life, you quivering slender thing,
It ought to be you—my racing girl—as the Amazon song you sing. ”

“ Do you feel your troubles around you rise in an endless dreary wall?
Well—thank your God you were born in time for the Greatest War of all.
It will be all right in a thousand years—you won't be bankrupt then.
This isn't the time of stocks and shares, it's just the age of men.
The one that sticks it out will win—so don't lie down and bawl,
But thank your God you've helped to win the noblest War of all. 12
Away to the East in Flanders' mud, through Dante's dream of Hell,
The troops are working hard for peace with bayonet, bomb, and shell,
With poison gas and roaring guns beneath a smoking pall ”

“ As we turned the Elbow Ledges—felt the engines ease to "Slow."
Rusty side and dingy paintwork, stripped for war and cleared for battle—
Saw the harbour-tugs around us—smelt the English fields again,—
English fields and English hedges—sheep and horses, English cattle,
Like a screen unrolled before us, through the mist of English rain. 150
Slowly through the basin entrance—twenty thousand tons a-crawling
With a thousand men aboard her, all a-weary of the War—
Warped her round and laid alongside with the cobble-stones a-calling—
"There's a special train awaiting, just for you to come ashore." ”

“ When a cloud of steam and lyddite smoke lay o'er the "Bluecher's" grave,
Who, as the bowmen fished him out and passed him aft to dry,
Read the name upon their ribbons with a twinkle in his eye,
And said: "A Westo ship, I think—I guess my luck is in,
I'm sick of German substitutes—now for some Plymouth gin."
And a picture of the sailor in a certain submarine,
Which was diving through the waters where the sweepers hadn't been,
And who heard a muffled bumping noise that passed along the side—
A noise that many men have heard an instant ere they died ”

“ You went to Death—and the whisper ran
As over the Gates the horns began,
Splendour of God! We have found a man—
Good-bye! Good luck to you!
5
OLD WOMEN
7
OLD WOMEN.
FAINT against the twilight, dim against the evening,
Fading into darkness against the lapping sea,
She sailed away from harbour, from safety into danger,
The ship that took him from me—my sailor boy from me.
He went away to join her, from me that loved and bore him,
Loved him ere I bore him, that was all the world to me.
"No time for leave, mother, must be back this evening,
Time for our patrol again, across the winter sea." ”

“ Or the High Sea Fleet from the Bight comes forth,
And the twelve-inch shells go by. 71
"We have waited very long, but we haven't any doubt
They are longing for the day we'll meet.
But tell 'em as you pass that the sooner they are out,
All the better for the English Fleet.
"For when we see 'em sinking— (they'll be fighting to the last,
And for those that are lost we'll grieve,)
We will cheer for a signal at the Flagship's mast—
On arrival at the Base—Long Leave!" ”

“ When the long grey ranks seem to thicken all the while,
And they stamp on the last of the wire,
When all along the line comes a whisper on the wind
That you hear through the drumming of the guns:
"They are through over there and the right is in the air,
And there isn't any end to the Huns,"— 218
Then keep along a-shooting till you can't shoot more,
And hit 'em with a shovel on the head.
Don't forget a lot of folk have beaten them before,
And a Hun'll never hurt you if he's dead. ”

“ And leave you on the long patrol to wait your brother Hun.
You wouldn't like the job, my lad—the motors turning slow,
You wouldn't like the winter-time—storm and wind and snow;
You'd find it weary waiting, Fritz—unless your faith is strong—
Up and down on the long patrol—How long, O Lord, how long?
We don't patrol for merchant ships, there's none but neutrals there,
Up and down on the old patrol, you can hear the E-boat's prayer: 133
"Give us a ten-knot breeze, O Lord, with a clear and blazing sky,
And help our eyes at the periscope as the High Sea Fleet goes by." ”

“ Over the curve of the rounded sea, in ordered lines as the ranks of Rome,
Over the far horizon steamed a power that held us dumb,— 197
Miles of racing lines of steel that flattened the sea to a field of foam,
Rolling deep to the wash they made,
We saw, to the threat of a German blade,
The Shield of England come.
WHO CARES?
201
WHO CARES?
THE sentries at the Castle Gate,
We hold the outer wall,
That echoes to the roar of hate
And savage bugle-call—
Of those that seek to enter in with steel and eager flame,
To leave you with but eyes to weep the day the Germans came. ”

“ ON PATROL
On Patrol BY
KLAXON
AUTHOR OF 'H. M. S. ——'
William Blackwood and Sons
Edinburgh and London
1919
TO
D. V. B.
THEY watch us leaving harbour for the greatest game of all,
And wonder if we're coming back across the greedy sea;
They never know the fighting thrill or high adventure's call—
I rather think the women folk are better men than we.
But I suspect they say of us as out to sea we go,
In all our panoply of pride from Orkney to the Nore:
"It keeps them quiet, we suppose—they like the work, we know—
And soon perhaps they'll tire and play some safer game than War." ”

“ One doesn't talk in drawing-rooms of Prussian dirt and such,
We only want to kill you off—so roll along and fight.
For men like you with filthy minds, you leave a nasty taste,
We can't forget your triumphs with the girls you met in France.
By your standards of morality, gorillas would be chaste,
And you consummate your triumphs with the bayonet and the lance. ”

“ The waves of the cold North Sea.
Right across from Helgoland to meet the English coast,
Lie better than the likes of we,—
Men that lived in many ways, but went to join the host
That are buried by the cold North Sea.
Rig along the life-lines, double-stay the rails,
Lest the Storm-King call for a fee;
For if any man should slip, through the rolling of the ship,
He'd be lost in the cold North Sea. 227
We are heading to the gale, and the driving of the sleet,
And we're far to the east of Three.
Hey! you German sailormen, here's the British Fleet
Waiting in the cold North Sea. ”

“ The streaky water rushes by as the crest of the sea goes past,
And you see her hull from the hydroplanes to the heel of her wireless mast
Stand out and hang as she leaps the trough to dive at the next one—Blast—!
Look-out, you fool. Hang on!
In the hollow between she stops for breath, then starts her climb anew—
"I can see your guns and wireless mast, old girl, but I can't see you,
And you'd better be quick and lift again—she won't, she's diving through"—
Look-out, you fool. Hang on! 127
The Lord be thanked, it's my relief—Cheer up, old sport, it's clean ”

“ A BATTLE-PRAYER. SUBMARINES.
WHEN the breaking wavelets pass all sparkling to the sky,
When beyond their crests we see the slender masts go by,
When the glimpses alternate in bubbles white and green,
And funnels grey against the sky show clear and fair between,
When the word is passed along—"Stern and beam and bow"—
"Action stations fore and aft—all torpedoes now!" ”

“ That "the mighty German Nation
Is a mass of skin and bone."
And they take their affidavy
That a fight is due at sea:
Dammit—tell the German Navy,
What's the use of telling me?
WE
79
WE.
ALL our fighting brothers are away across the foam,
Hats off to the Englishman!
Here's a chance for Englishmen living safe at home,
Make a lot of money while you can!
We are fighting for the Right and the Honour of the Race
With the Bulldog Grip they know;
Who's the silly novice there putting on the pace?
You'll be taken for a Yank—Go slow!
All the Nations know us as the finest of the Earth ”

“ We are broken and down in the fight of the world for an end to heathen lust,
But the sword we dropped when the darkness came is yours to handle yet.
If you sheathe the sword for a greed of gold or suffer the steel to rust,
The curse of the captive men be yours—the day when you forget—!
REGULUS
65
REGULUS. (Written after reading the story of that name in 'A Diversity of Creatures' by Kipling.)
OUT to the wharf where the long ship lay with her beak to the open sea,
He went by the way of the merchantmen that trade to the ports of Spain ”

“ On the battlefield that flashes far below.
From the trenches or the sea there's a pass for such as we,
For we died with our faces to the foe.
"We haven't any creed, for we never felt the need,
And our morals are as ragged as can be ”

“ There are lots of proper targets for attacking, little Fritz,
But you seem to like the merchantmen, and blowing them to bits.
I suppose it must be easy fruit to get an Iron Cross
By strafing sail and cargo ships—but don't you feel the loss
Of the wonderful excitement when you face a man-of-war,
And tearing past you overhead the big propellers roar? 132
When you know that it's a case of "May the fish run good and true,"
For if they don't it's ten to one it's R.I.P. for you?
Although perhaps you can't be blamed—your motives may be pure—
You're rather new to submarines—in fact, an amateur ”

“ And—Patrol Flotilla Exercise will start within a week;
Someone Big will say to Someone: "Time for work and time for play,
(Rub his hands together briskly) We'll commence the work to-day;
They have had their fun and fighting, and they must be getting slack,
Stop all leave and start manœuvres—for the good old times are back."
Then destroyers and torpedo-boats and submarines and oilers
Will receive a little notice headed "Maintenance of Boilers,"
"To economise in fuel while the ships are out at sea
Each pound of steam will count as two, and every knot as three." ”

“ No ship should cross a line between the Jahde and Amrum Bank,
But should a German flag be seen (unless of junior rank) , 114
No captain can do very wrong who indicates by guns—
We won't have our manœuvres spoilt by interfering Huns. ”

“ It isn't the money that's going to count when the Flanders' men return,
And a shake of your hand from Flanders' men is a thing you've got to earn. 13
Just think how cold it's going to be in the Nation's Judgment Hall;
So damn your troubles and find your soul in the Greatest War of all!
"... THAT HAVE NO DOUBTS"
17
"... THAT HAVE NO DOUBTS." —Rudyard Kipling.
THE last resort of Kings are we, but the voice of peoples too—
Ask the guns of Valmy Ridge—
Lost at the Beresina Bridge,
When the Russian guns were roaring death and the Guard was charging through. ”

“ What's the good of hurrying? British pluck'll win;
We can stand to the strain all right.
What about another rise? Send the notice in—
Just to show how the Bulldogs fight. 81
Chorus! all together—We're the finest race of all,
So beware of the English Blade;
Now the fighting men are gone—why, however many fall,
All the more for the lads that stayed.
THE SAILOR'S VIEW
85
THE SAILOR'S VIEW. (1916) .
TOO proud to fight? I'm not so sure—our skipper now and then
Has lectured to us on patrol on foreign ships and men,
And other nation's submarines, when cruising round the Bight ”

“ By your badges of the air, of the trenches, and the ships,
And the wounds that on your bodies glisten so." 145
And he looked upon the wounds, that were many and were grim,
And his glance was all-embracing—unafraid;
And he looked to meet the eyes that were smiling up to him,
All a-level as a new-forged blade.
"Ye are savage men and rough—from the fo'c'sle and the tent ”