Page:More songs by the fighting men, soldier poets, second series, 1917.djvu/58

More Songs by the Fighting Men Plymouth Mists

EAR-DIMMED eyes my loved one lifted,

When she said good-bye to me;

Sweet, grey eyes, where colours shifted

Like the shadows on the sea:

O'er the cliffs of Devon, keeping

Guard, like eyes, o'er Devon's mouth,

Sad, grey mists came stilly creeping,

Sorrow-laden, from the South.

Through the weary weight of sadness,

And the numbness of despair,

Came a thought that turned to gladness

Even the pain I could not bear:

Those proud cliffs were calling clearly,

As Drake heard them in his day:—

"England knows you love her dearly,

Weeps to send you far away."

'Neath this brazen, blazing heaven,

In a wilderness of sand,

Daily England's lives are given

For her newest, oldest land; 54