In the Diving-room, where the O. O. D.his weary vigil keeps, Battered and scarred with years of strife behind the door she sleeps, Fighting her battles o'er again as ancient warriors may, With bristling fur as she dreams anew of many a noble fray.
Savage and Silent, Swift in the onslaught As the great eagle Stoops to the victim;
Guard of the Gangway, Dreadful — prolific, Mother of hundreds, Terrier-Strafer,
Messenger-biter. Hail to the guard of the Maidstone's Gangway — Skoal! Sing of the day the air was full of words like “Alabaster,” When she ate a piece of the Corporal's hand and bit the Quartermaster;
The day she fought with an Airedale dog and drove him back to shore — For the sake of her sixty little ones, she fought — and had some more. Faithful and loyal, Guard of the Gangway,
Turning the dogs back — Yelping and howling. Biting her masters — Corporals — any one
Fiercely domestic, Easily queen of — Pugnacious obstetrics — Motherly War.
Hail to the terror and pride of the Maidstone — Skoal!! Sing of the day she won the fray with a new “Pandora” dog, And the Quartermaster shone with pride as he entered in the log: “At P. M. we dowsed our pipes and drew the Nettle's fires,
At . six births aboard — that blinkin’ cat of ours!” Our brothers of the landward side Are bound by Church and stall, By Councils OEcumenical,
By Gothic arches tall; But we who know the cold grey sea, The salt and flying spray, We praise the Lord in our fathers’ way,
In the simple faith of the sea we pray, To the God that the winds and waves obey Who sailed on Galilee. We pray as the Flag-Lieutenant prayed,
At St Vincent's cabin door ( Twenty sail of the line in view — South-West by South they bore ): “O Lord of Hosts, I praise Thee now,
And bow before Thy might, Who has given us fingers and hands to fight, And twenty ships of the line in sight; Thou knewest, O Lord, and placed them right —
To leeward, on the bow.”
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