Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/657

 INCLUSIVE EDITION, 1885-1918 639

What stir across the haze of heat?

What omen down the wind? The buck that break before my feet

They know, but I am blind!

Collected.

1914-18

CfAREWELL and adieu to you, Harwich Ladies,

Farewell and adieu to you, ladies ashore! For we've received orders to work to the eastward Where we hope in a short time to strafe 'em some more.

We'll duck and we'll dive like little tin turtles, We'll duck and we'll dive underneath the North Seas, Until we strike something that doesn't expect us, From here to Cuxhaven it's go as you please!

The first thing we did was to dock in a minefield, Which isn't a place where repairs should be done; And there we lay doggo in twelve-fathom water With tri-nitro-toluol hogging our run.

The next thing we did, we rose under a Zeppelin, With his shiny big belly half blocking the sky. But what in the Heavens can you do with six-pounders? So we fired what we had and we bade him good-bye. Farewell and adieu, &c.

Fringes of the Fleet.