Harwich Ladies by Rudyard Kipling
Harwich Ladies by Rudyard Kipling

Harwich Ladies

Rudyard Kipling * Track #11 On The Fringes of the Fleet

Download "Harwich Ladies"

Harwich Ladies by Rudyard Kipling

Performed by
Rudyard Kipling
About

This poem about submariners was originally published in the Daily Telegraph during the First World War, and was published again shortly afterwards in the booklet “The Fringes of the Fleet”.

The form of the verse is that of the old seafarers’ ballad, “Farewell and adieu, to you Spanish ladies”.

Harwich Ladies Annotated

Farewell and adieu to you, Harwich Ladies,
Farewell and adieu to you, ladies ashore!
For we've received orders to work to the eastward
Where we hope in a short time to strafe 'em some more.

We'll duck and we'll dive like little tin turtles,
We'll duck and we'll dive underneath the North Seas,
Until we strike something that doesn't expect us.
From here to Cuxhaven it's go as you please!

The first thing we did was to dock in a minefield,
Which isn't a place where repairs should be done;
And there we lay doggo in twelve-fathom water
With tri-nitro-toluol hogging our run.

The next thing we did, we rose under a Zeppelin,
With his shiny big belly half blocking the sky.
But what in the—Heavens can you do with six-pounders?
So we fired what we had and we bade him good-bye.

Farewell and adieu, etc.

Your Gateway to High-Quality MP3, FLAC and Lyrics
DownloadMP3FLAC.com