Volume 2 — The Torpedo.
Reading edition
By Katharine Drayton Mayrant Simons, Jr.
Death, our mother, gave us her three gray gifts from the sea—
(Cherish your birthright, Brothers!)—speed, cunning, and certainty.
And mailèd Mars, he blest us—but his blessing was most to me!
For the swift gun sometimes falters, sparing the foe afar,
And the hid mine wastes destruction on the drag's decoying spar,
But I am the wrath of the Furies' path—of the war god's avatar!
Mine is the brain of thinking steel man made to match his own,
To guard and guide the death disks packed in the war head's hammered cone,
To drive the cask of the thin air flask as the gyroscope has shown.
My brother, the gun, shrieks o'er the sea his curse from the covered deck,
My brother, the mine, lies sullen-dumb, agape for the dreadnought's wreck,
I glide on the breath of my mother, Death, and my goal is my only check!
More strong than the strength of armored ships is the firing pin's frail spark,
More sure than the helm of the mighty fleet are my rudders to their mark,
The faint foam fades from the bright screw blades—and I strike from the under dark!
Death, our mother, gave us her three gray gifts from the sea—
(Cherish your birthright, Brothers!)—speed, cunning, and certainty.
And mailèd Mars, he blest us—but his blessing was most to me!