I saw the glint of moonlight on her bell;
She was not twenty fathoms length away.
A man's face leaped out in the cherry glow
Of match flame in the hands he cupped
About the pipe whose curling wreaths he supped.
"Clang!" like a fireman's gong
Our engine signals rang;
The paddles thrashed into a frothy song;
Five ship's lengths we had forged along
Before their bugles sang.
We had ten long lengths on them
Before their ship began to swerve.
The rabid screw was frothing at her stern;
But I could feel the verve
Of our blithe timbers tremble; every nerve
Of our good race-horse ship
For open water seemed to yearn.
That was a Titan's race;
The answering rockets snaked it down the coast,
Dying like scarlet worms
Among the fog-wreaths; but we gained,
And when her flaming cannon stabbed the mist
They thundered at our ghost.
So we were gone,
With cotton in our furnace,
Once the aft-stacks flared,
And then we plied pitch-pine
Dampened with turpentine,
Until the black sea glared--
But we had gone--
Over the world's round shoulder
Thrust the dawn,
Their ugly, black masts dipping it hull down.
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