Page:Poems that every child should know (ed. Burt, 1904).djvu/194

156 It was our war-ship Clampherdown,

And grimly did she roll;

Swung round to take the cruiser's fire

As the White Whale faces the Thresher's ire,

When they war by the frozen Pole.

"Captain, the shells are falling fast,

And faster still fall we;

And it is not meet for English stock,

To bide in the heart of an eight-day clock,

The death they cannot see."

"Lie down, lie down, my bold A. B.,

We drift upon her beam;

We dare not ram, for she can run;

And dare ye fire another gun,

And die in the peeling steam?"

It was our war-ship Clampherdown

That carried an armour-belt;

But fifty feet at stern and bow,

Lay bare as the paunch of the purser's sow,

To the hail of the Nordenfeldt.

"Captain, they lack us through and through;

The chilled steel bolts are swift!

We have emptied the bunkers in open sea,

Their shrapnel bursts where our coal should be."

And he answered, "Let her drift."

It was our war-ship Clampherdown,

Swung round upon the tide.