‘For All Seafarers’
Even in peace, scant quiet is the sea,
In war each revolution of the screw,
Each breath of air that blows the colours free,
May be the last life moment known to you,

Death thrusting down may disunite,
Spirit from body, purpose from the hull,
With thunder bringing leaving of the light,
With lightening letting nothingness annul.

No rock, no danger, bears a warning sign,
No lighthouse scatters welcome through the dark,
Above the sea, the bomb; afloat, the mine;
Beneath the gangs of the torpedo shark.

Year after year, with insufficient guard,
Often with none, have you adventured thus,
Some reaching harbour, maimed and battle scarred,
Some never more returning lost to us.

But if you ‘scape, tomorrow you will steer
To peril once again, to bring us bread,
To dare again, beneath the sky of fear,
The moon-moved graveyard of your brothers dead.

You were salvation to the army lost,
Trapped, but for you, upon the Dunkirk beach,
Death barred the way to Russia, but you crossed;
To Crete and Malta, but you succoured each.

Unrecognised you put us in your debt,
Unthanked, you enter, or escape the grave;
Whether your land remember or forget
You saved the land, or died to try to save

John Masefield