Long after the shadow of war is fled <br />And the last battle is fought <br />Men will remember the Little Ships <br />And the great things they wrought. <br /> <br />We shall tell over with laughter and tears <br />The homely names they bore - <br />They, not meant for the baptism of fire <br />And the grim uses of war. <br /> <br />Paddler, dinghy and sailing barge <br /> <br />Eagle <br />and <br />Queen <br />and <br />Belle, <br /> <br />And the humble Marthas of the ports <br />That have no name to tell. <br /> <br />Let us remember them and their men <br />Who asked not fee nor fame, <br />But all they knew was a job to do, <br />And they spat on their palms and they came. <br /> <br />They dared the hell of the shell-swept dunes, <br />The hell of the bomb-torn tide, <br />They cared not a damn if they sank or swam, <br />Nor yet if they lived or died. <br /> <br />Home they came from that coast of death, <br />Each with her tale of men, <br />Stayed but to set them ashore - and so <br />Back to hell’s mouth again. . . . <br /> <br />Therefore, while England’s cliffs shall stand, <br />And the Channel tides do roll, <br />Let us remember the Little Ships - <br />How on the Day of the Little Ships <br />They saved an army whole.<br /><br />Cicely Fox Smith<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-day-of-little-ships/
