Page:The Seven Seas (Kipling, 1896).djvu/31

Rh Or the wreck that lies on the spouting reef

Where the ghastly blue-lights flare.

If blood be the price of admiralty,

If blood be the price of admiralty,

If blood be the price of admiralty,

Lord God, we ha' bought it fair!

THE DEEP-SEA CABLES

The wrecks dissolve above us; their dust drops down from afar—

Down to the dark, to the utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are.

There is no sound, no echo of sound, in the deserts of the deep,

Or the great gray level plains of ooze where the shell-burred cables creep.

Here in the womb of the world—here on the tie-ribs of earth

Words, and the words of men, flicker and flutter and beat—

Warning, sorrow and gain, salutation and mirth—

For a Power troubles the Still that has neither voice nor feet.