<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">Sailor, What of the Debt We Owe You?</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">Sailor</span>, what of the debt we owe you?</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Day or night is the peril more?</p><p class="line">Who so dull that he fails to know you,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Sleepless guard of our island shore?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Safe the corn to the farmyard taken;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Grain ships safe upon all the seas;</p><p class="line">Homes in peace and a faith unshaken --</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Sailor, what do we owe for these?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Safe the clerk at his desk; the trader</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Counts unruined his honest gain;</p><p class="line">Safe though yonder the curs't invader</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Pours red death over hill and plain.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Sailor, what of the debt we owe you?</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Now is the hour at last to pay,</p><p class="line">Now in the stricken field to show you</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">What is the spirit you guard to-day.</p></div><p class="byline">-- Andrew John Stuart.<br xmlns:exist="http://exist.sourceforge.net/NS/exist" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"/> (Eldest son of the Earl of Castlestewart, Lieut. 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers, killed in action in France between Sept. 25 and 27, 1915.)</p></body></html> · Great War