Page:Canadian poems of the great war.djvu/165

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��S. Morgan-Powell THE FLEET ON GUARD

OG off the Dogger, and the heavy swell Rolls in its sullen wrath, yet impotent To halt the low, lean Greyhounds of the Sea From their incessant watch.

Through the dank mist

That clings around them and about, they loom Long, slim, and phantomlike, their piercing eyes Gleaming in tenuous shafts of silvered light. This way and that they turn unceasingly, Striving to penetrate the swirling gloom That wraps them in its close and chilling folds. Throughout the watches of the night they ride The heaving swell, alive, alert, prepared: Nor e er their guard relax for with them rests The fate of Britain s millions, wrapt in sleep.

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��KITCHENER S WORK

TEADFAST and silent through the changing years

He fought and won and planned and organized,

Duty his sole ideal and his star.

He courted neither glory nor acclaim.

He never trod the path of gilded ease

Or sought the ways of dreamy indolence,

Service his banner, and his changeless goal

Some task achieved for Country and for King.

The Egyptian deserts knew him, and the tread Of his triumphant legions stirred old Nile From centuries of dreaming till the fate Of Gordon was avenged at Orndurman. The Himalayas knew him, and his name The crafty Pathan of the Laspur hills Learned first to fear, and late to hold in awe.

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