We Have Fed Our Sea Lyrics

I We have fed our sea for a thousand years And she calls us, still unfed, Tbough there's never a wave of all her waves But marks our English dead: We have strawed our best to the weed's unrest, To the shark and the sheering gull. If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God, we ha' paid in tull! II There's never a flood goes shoreward now But lifts a keel we manned; There's never an ebb goes seaward now But drops our dead on the sand -- But slinks our dead on the sands forlore, From the Ducies to the Swin. If blood be the price of admiralty, If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God, we ha' paid it in! III We must feed our sea for a thousand years, For that is our doom and pride, As it was when they sailed with the Golden Hind, Or tbe wreck that struck last tide -- Or the wreck that lies on the spouting reef Where the ghastly blue-lights flare If blood be tbe price of admiralty, If blood be tbe price of admiralty, If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God, we ha' bought it fair!