The Admiral's Ghost
I tell you a tale to-night
Which a seaman told to me,
With eyes that gleamed in the lanthorn light
And a voice as low as the sea.
You could almost hear the stars
Twinkling up in the sky,
And the old wind woke and moaned in the spars
And the same old waves went by.
Singing the same old song
As ages and ages ago,
While he froze my blood in that deep-sea night
With the things he seemed to know.
A bare foot pattered on deck;
Ropes creaked; then-all grew still,
And he pointed his finger straight in my face
And growled, as a sea-dog will.
'Do 'ee know who Nelson was?
That pore little shrivelled form
With the patch on his eye and the pinned-up sleeve
And a soul like a North Sea storm?
'Ask of the Devonshire men!
They know, and they'll tell you true;
He wasn't the pore little chawed-up chap
That Hardy thought he knew.
'He wasn't the man you think!
His patch was a dern disguise!
For he knew that they'd find him out, d'you see,
If they looked him in both his eyes.
'He was twice as big as he seemed;
But his clothes were cunningly made.
He'd both of his hairy arms alright!
The sleeve was a trick of the trade.
'You've heard of sperrits, no doubt;
Well there's more in the matter than that!
But he wasn't the patch and he wasn't the sleeve,
And he wasn't the laced cocked-hat.
'Nelson was just-a Ghost!
You may laugh! But the Devonshire men
They knew that he'd come when England called,
And they know that he'll come again.
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poem by Alfred Noyes
Added by Poetry Lover
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