Great sea dog, fighter in the great old way! <br />What though thy ships were tinder, and the pest <br />Rotted thy ruffian crews that need had prest, <br />And all thy keels were clogged with foul decay, <br />Yet through the roaring months thy squadron lay <br />A watch-dog eager at the throat of Brest <br />While all the ocean smote her from the West <br />And all the tempests tore her in their play. <br />Thy soul was of the whirlwind, and thy cry <br />Still leaps from out the crash of guns and waves <br />To hurl us headlong on the foeman’s van, <br />As in the Bay of Death, ’mid breakers high <br />And felon reefs whereo’er the Atlantic raves, <br />Thy flagship foremost into glory ran.<br /><br />Archibald Thomas Strong<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnets-of-the-empire-hawk/
