Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/223

 ��THE SEARCHLIGHTS

Political morality differs from individual morality, be- cause there is no power above the State.

— General von Bernhardi.

Sh.\dow by shadow, stripped for fight The lean black cruisers search the sea.

Xight-long their level shafts of light Revolve, and find no enemy.

Only they know each leaping wave

May hide the lightning, and their grave.

And in the land they guard so well Is there no silent watch to keep ?

An age is dying, and the bell

Rings midnight on a vaster deep.

But over all its waves, once more

The searchlights move, from shore to shore.

And captains that we thought were dead. And dreamers that we thought were dumb,

And voices that we thought were fled, Arise, and call us, and we come ;

And "search in thine own soul," they cry;

"For there, too, lurks thine enemy."

�� �