<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">Kilmeny</h1><h1 align="center" class="head">(A <span class="smallcaps">Song of the Trawlers</span>)</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">Dark</span>, dark, lay the drifters, against the red west,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">As they shot their long meshes of steel overside;</p><p class="line">And the oily green waters were rocking to rest</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">When <em>Kilmeny</em> went out, at the turn of the tide.</p><p class="line">And nobody knew where that lassie would roam,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">For the magic that called her was tapping unseen.</p><p class="line">It was well nigh a week ere <em>Kilmeny</em> came home,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And nobody knew where <em>Kilmeny</em> had been.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">She'd a gun at her bow that was Newcastle's best,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And a gun at her stern that was fresh from the Clyde,</p><p class="line">And a secret her skipper had never confessed,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Not even at dawn, to his newly wed bride;</p><p class="line">And a wireless that whispered above like a gnome,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The laughter of London, the boasts of Berlin.</p><p class="line">O, it may have been mermaids that lured her from home,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">But nobody knew where <em>Kilmeny</em> had been.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">It was dark when <em>Kilmeny</em> came home from her quest,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">With her bridge dabbled red where her skipper had died;</p><p class="line">But she moved like a bride with a rose at her breast;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And "Well done, <em>Kilmeny!</em>" the admiral cried.</p><p class="line">Now at sixty-four fathom a conger may come,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And nose at the bones of a drowned submarine;</p><p class="line">But late in the evening <em>Kilmeny</em> came home,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And nobody knew where <em>Kilmeny</em> had been.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">There's a wandering shadow that stares at the foam,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Though they sing all night to old England, their queen,</p><p class="line">Late, late in the evening <em>Kilmeny</em> came home,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And nobody knew where <em>Kilmeny</em> had been.</p></div><p class="byline">Alfred Noyes</p></body></html> · Great War