Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/743

 INCLUSIVE EDITION, 1885-1918 725

When the unseen leadsmen lean Questioning a deep unseen; When their lessened count they tell To a bridge invisible; When the hid and perilous Cliffs return our cry to us;

When the treble thickness spread Swallows up our next-ahead; W T hen her siren's frightened whine Shows her sheering out of line; When her passage undiscerned We must turn where she has turned,

Hear the Channel Fleet at sea:

Libera nos Domine !

THE BALLAD OF MINEPIT SHAW

A BOUT the time that taverns shut

And men can buy no beer, Two lads went up to the keepers' hut To steal Lord Pelham's deer.

Night and the liquor was in their heads They laughed and talked no bounds,

Till they waked the keepers on their beds And the keepers loosed the hounds.

They had killed a hart, they had killed a hind,

Ready to carry away,. When they heard a whimper down the wind

And they heard a bloodhound bay.