Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Verse: 1885–1918. 1922.

The Wet Litany

WHEN the water’s countenance

Blurrs ’twixt glance and second glance;

Then our tattered smokes forerun

Ashen ’neath a silvered sun;

When the curtain of the haze

Shuts upon our helpless ways—

Hear the Channel Fleet at sea:

Libera nos Domine!

When the engines’ bated pulse

Scarcely thrills the nosing hulls;

When the wash along the side

Sounds, a-sudden, magnified;

When the intolerable blast

Marks each blindfold minute passed;

When the fog-buoy’s squattering flight

Guides us through the haggard night;

When the warning bugle blows;

When the lettered doorways close;

When our brittle townships press,

Impotent, on emptiness;

When the unseen leadsmen lean

Questioning a deep unseen;

When their lessened count they tell

To a bridge invisible;

When the hid and perilous

Cliffs return our cry to us;

When the treble thickness spread

Swallows up our next-ahead;

When her siren’s frightened whine

Shows her sheering out of line;

When—her passage undiscerned—

We must turn where she has turned,

Hear the Channel Fleet at sea:

Libera nos Domine!