The Peoples Fleet

UT of her darkened fishing-ports they go,

A fleet of little ships, whose every name —Daffodil,

Sea-lark,

Rose and Surf and Snow,

Bums in this blackness like an altar-flame;

Out of her past they sail, three thousand strong,

The people's fleet that never knew its worth,

And every name is a broken phrase of

To some remembered loveliness on earth.

There's Barbara Cowie,

Comely Bank and May,

Christened, at home, in worlds of dawn and dew :

There's Ruth and Kindly Light and Robin Gray,

With Mispah. (May that simple prayer come true!)Out of old England's inmost heart they sail,

A fleet of memories that can never fail.

This poem was taken from Alfred Noyes' book The Elfin Artist and other poems, published in 1920 by William Blackwood and Sons.

It is in a section entitled Songs of the Trawlers.