Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/252

68 They cleared the cruiser end to end,

From conning-tower to hold.

They fought as they fought in Nelson's fleet;

They were stripped to the waist, they were bare to the feet,

As it was in the days of old.

It was the sinking "Clampherdown"

Heaved up her battered side—

And carried a million pounds in steel,

To the cod and the corpse-fed conger-eel

And the scour of the Channel tide.

It was the crew of the "Clampherdown"

Stood out to sweep the sea,

On a cruiser won from an ancient foe.

As it was in the days of long-ago,

And as it still shall be.