Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/216

 When Drake went down to the Horn And England was crowned thereby, Twixt seas unsailed and shores unhailed Our Lodge-our Lodge was born (And England was crowned thereby!)

Which never shall close again By day nor yet by night, While man shall take his life to stake At risk of shoal or main (By day nor yet by night)

But standeth even so As now we witness here, While men depart, of joyful heart, Adventure for to know (As now bear witness here!)

We have fed our sea for a thousand years And she calls us, still unfed, Though there's never a wave of all her waves But marks our English dead: We have strawed our best to the weed's unrest, To the shark and the sheering gull. If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

There's never a flood goes shoreward now But lifts a keel we manned; There's never an ebb goes seaward now But drops our dead on the sand But slinks our dead on the sands forlore, From the Ducies to the Swin. If blood be the price of admiralty, If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God, we ha' paid it in!