“OUR ANNUAL”

Up the well-remembered fairway, past the buoys and forts we drifted —

Saw the houses, roads, and churches as they were a year ago.

Far astern were wars and battles, all the dreary clouds were lifted,

As we turned the Elbow Ledges — felt the engines ease to “Slow.”

Rusty side and dingy paintwork, stripped for war and cleared for battle —

Saw the harbour-tugs around us — smelt the English fields again,—

English fields and English hedges — sheep and horses, English cattle,

Like a screen unrolled before us, through the mist of English rain.

Slowly through the basin entrance — twenty thousand tons a-crawling

With a thousand men aboard her, all a-weary of the War —

Warped her round and laid alongside with the cobble-stones a-calling —

“There's a special train awaiting, just for you to come ashore.”

Out again as fell the evening, down the harbour in the gloaming

With the sailors on the fo'c' sle looking wistfully a-lee —

Just another year of waiting — just another year of roaming

For the Majesty of England — for the Freedom of the Sea.