Dark, dark, lay the drifters, against the red west,

As they shot their long meshes of steel overside;

And the oily green waters were rocking to rest

When Kilmeny went out, at the turn of the tide.

And nobody knew where that lassie would roam,

For the magic that called her was tapping unseen.

It was well nigh a week ere Kilmeny came home,

And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

She'd a gun at her bow that was Newcastle's best,

And a gun at her stern that was fresh from the Clyde,

And a secret her skipper had never confessed,

Not even at dawn, to his newly wed bride;

And a wireless that whispered above like a gnome,

The laughter of London, the boasts of Berlin.

O, it may have been mermaids that lured her from home,

But nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

It was dark when Kilmeny came home from her quest,

With her bridge dabbled red where her skipper had died;

But she moved like a bride with a rose at her breast;

And "Well done, Kilmeny!" the admiral cried.

Now at sixty-four fathom a conger may come,

And nose at the bones of a drowned submarine;

But late in the evening Kilmeny came home,

And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.

There's a wandering shadow that stares at the foam,

Though they sing all night to old England, their queen,

Late, late in the evening Kilmeny came home,

And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.