II
We have fed our sea for a thousand yearsAnd she calls us, still unfed,Though there’s never a wave of all her wavesBut marks our English dead:We have strawed our best to the weed’s unrest,To the shark and the sheering gull.If blood be the price of admiralty,Lord God, we ha’ paid in full!
There’s never a flood goes shoreward nowBut lifts a keel we manned;There’s never an ebb goes seaward nowBut drops our dead on the sand—But slinks our dead on the sands forlore,From the Ducies to the Swin.If blood be the price of admiralty,If blood be the price of admiralty,Lord God, we ha’ paid it in!
We must feed our sea for a thousand years,For that is our doom and pride,As it was when they sailed with the Golden Hind,Or the wreck that struck last tide—Or the wreck that lies on the spouting reefWhere the ghastly blue-lights flare.If blood be the price of admiralty,If blood be the price of admiralty,If blood be the price of admiralty,Lord God, we ha’ bought it fair!