Dark, dark, lay the drifters, against the red west, <br />As they shot their long meshes of steel overside; <br />And the oily green waters were rocking to rest <br />When Kilmeny went out, at the turn of the tide. <br />And nobody knew where that lassie would roam, <br />For the magic that called her was tapping unseen. <br />It was well nigh a week ere Kilmeny came home, <br />And nobody knew hwere Kilmeny had been. <br /> <br />She'd a gun at her bow that was Newcastle's best, <br />And a gun at her stern that was fresh from the Clyde, <br />And a secret her skipper had never confessed, <br />Not even at dawn, to his newly wed bride; <br />And a wireless that whispered above like a gnome, <br />The laughter of London, the boasts of Berlin. <br />O, it may have been mermaids that lured her from home, <br />But nobody knew where Kilmeny had been. <br /> <br />It was dark when Kilmeny came home from her quest, <br />With her bridge dabbled red where her skipper had died; <br />But she moved like a bride with a rose at her breast; <br />And "Well done,Kilmeny!" the admiral cried. <br />Now at sixty-four fathom a conger may come, <br />And nose at the bones of a drowned submarine; <br />But late in the evening Kilmeny came home, <br />And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been. <br /> <br />There's a wandering shadow that stares at the foam, <br />Though they sing all night to old England, their queen, <br />Late, late in the evening Kilmeny came home, <br />And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.<br /><br />Alfred Noyes<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/kilmeny-a-song-of-the-trawlers/
