"It's small craft again, but we're terribly short;
Let us pray for the Empire whose sun never sets;"
Then the fishing fleet pensively hauled in its nets.

And rolling with laughter, at varying speeds
The New Navy sped to the Old Navy's needs;
Unblushingly paintless, by units or lots,
Came drifters and trawlers and whalers and yachts;
And, heedless of Discipline Acts, I've been told,
The New Navy cheerfully winked at the Old.

Without any pride but the pride of its race,
The New Navy took its historical place
In warfare on quite unconventional lines
As hunting sea vermin or sweeping for mines,
Till the sea would agree when a battleship swore
That surely they'd helped an Old Navy before.

Through Summer and Autumn, through Winter and Spring
The Old Navy patiently guarded the ring.
The while the Auxiliaries out on the blue
Were making the most of the flag that they flew,
And a cruiser would call to her sister, astern,
"Precocious as ever, they've nothing to learn!"

The Old Navy stretched as they got under way
To take the Surrender that fell on a Day,
And the drifters and trawlers looked on from afar
At the cruisers and battleships winning the War,
And, cheering the conquest with ev'ry good wish,