The North Sea Patrol

1914–18

Where the East wind is brewed fresh and fresh every morning,
  And the balmy night-breezes blow straight from the Pole,
I heard a Destroyer sing: “What an enjoyable life does one lead on the North Sea Patrol!

“To blow things to bits is our business (and Fritz’s),
  Which means there are mine-fields wherever you stroll.
Unless you’ve particular wish to die quick, you’ll a-
  void steering close to the North Sea Patrol.

“We warn from disaster the mercantile master
  Who takes in high Dudgeon our life-saving rôle,
For every one’s grousing at Docking and Dowsing
  The marks and the lights on the North Sea Patrol.”


[Twelve verses omitted.]

So swept but surviving, half drowned but still driving,
I watched her head out through the swell off the shoal,
And I heard her propellers roar: “Write to poor fellers
  Who run such a Hell as the North Sea Patrol!”
The North Sea Patrol

by Rudyard Kipling, 1919
