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I once looked out from the Tamar Bridge at the
warships down below,
Ships of the modern Navy, whose names I did
not know.
And as I stood and gazed at them on the water
far below,
I saw a fleet of phantom ships and men of long
ago.
The Rodney and the Nelson, the Valiant,
Ramilies,
Repulse Renown and Malaya, coming home from
foreign seas.
I saw Revenge and Warspite, the ill-fated
Royal Oak,
So many ships, their names made faint by shell
and fire and smoke.
And some I see to harbour come as though thro'
glasses dark,
The Barham and the Glorious, the Eagle and the
Ark.
And then there comes the greatest, the mighty
warship Hood,
Dark and grey and wraithlike from the spot on
which I stood.
The big ships and the little ships returned
for me to see,
there's the Glowworm and the
Harding, the Devonshire and the Kent,
The Cossack and Courageous, the Suffolk and
Ardent.
But mercifully hidden are the men and stilled
their cries,
Now I can't see too clearly, must be the smoke
that's in my eyes.
You don't know Shorty Hasset, he won the DSM,
He still fought on when Exeter was burning
stern to stem.
Where now the Dodger, Long and Lofty, where
now the boys and men?
They are lost and gone forever; will we see
their likes again?
I thought I saw them mustering on deck for
daily prayer
and heard "For Those in Peril" rise on the
evening air.
Then darker grew the picture as the lowering
night came on,
I looked down from the lofty bridge but all
the ships had gone.
Those mighty ships had vanished, gone too
those simple men.
We'll surely never see the likes of them
again.
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