Gunner and guns may all be right,
Flags a-flying and armour tight,
But I am the fellow you've first to fight--
The giant that swings the seas._

{5}

III

_The Middle Watch_

In a blue dusk the ship astern
Uplifts her slender spars,
With golden lights that seem to burn
Among the silver stars.
Like fleets along a cloudy shore
The constellations creep,
Like planets on the ocean floor
Our silent course we keep.

_And over the endless plain,
Out of the night forlorn
Rises a faint refrain,
A song of the day to be born--
Watch, oh watch till ye find again
Life and the land of morn._

From a dim West to a dark East
Our lines unwavering head,
As if their motion long had ceased
And Time itself were dead.

{6}

Vainly we watch the deep below,
Vainly the void above,
They died a thousand years ago--
Life and the land we love.

_But over the endless plain,
Out of the night forlorn
Rises a faint refrain,
A song of the day to be born--
Watch, oh watch till ye find again
Life and the land of morn._

{7}

IV

_The Little Admiral_

Stand by to reckon up your battleships
Ten, twenty, thirty, there they go.
Brag about your cruisers like Leviathans--
A thousand men a-piece down below.
But here's just one little Admiral
We're all of us his brothers and his sons,
And he's worth, O he's worth at the very least
Double all your tons and all your guns.

_Stand by, etc._

See them on the forebridge signalling--
A score of men a-hauling hand to hand,
And the whole fleet flying like the wild geese
Moved by some mysterious command.
Where's the mighty will that shows the way to them,
The mind that sees ahead so quick and clear?
He's there, Sir, walking all alone there--
The little man whose voice you never hear.

_Stand by, etc._

{8}

There are queer things that only come to sailormen;
They're true, but they're never understood;
And I know one thing about the Admiral,
That I can't tell rightly as I should.
I've been with him when hope sank under us--
He hardly seemed a mortal like the rest,
I could swear that he had stars upon his uniform,
And one sleeve pinned across his breast.

_Stand by, etc._

Some day we're bound to sight the ene