"THE SNIPE\'S LAMENT
Now each of us from time to time, has gazed upon the sea, and watched the
war
ships pulling out, to keep this country free and most of us have read a
book,
or heard a lusty tale, about the men who sailed these ships, through
lightning, wind, and hail but there is a place within each ship, that legend
fail to teach.
It\'s down below the water line, it takes a living toll.... A hot metal
living
hell that sailors call the "Hole." It houses engines run by steam, that
makes the shaft go round, A place of fire, noise and heat, that beats your
spirits down. Where boilers like a hellish heart, with blood of angry steam,
Are molded Gods without remorse, are nightmares in a dream.
Whose threat that from the fires roar, is like a living doubt that any
minute
would with scorn, escape and crush you out. Where turbines scream like
tortured souls, alone and lost in hell, as ordered from above somewhere,
they
answer every bell, the men who keep the fires lit, and make the engines run,
Are strangers to the world of night, and rarely see the sun.
They have no time for Man or God, no tolerance for fear, their aspect pays
no
living thing, the tribute of a tear. For there\'s not much that men can do,
that these men haven\'t done. Beneath the decks, deep in the hole, to make
the
engines run,.and every hour of every day, they keep the watch in hell, for
if
the fires ever fail, their ship\'s a useless shell.
When ships converge to have a war, upon angry sea, The men below just grimly
smile at what their fate might be. They\'re locked in below like men fore
doomed, who hear no battle cry, It\'s well assumed that if they\'re hit, the
men below will die. For every day\'s a war down there, when the gauges all
read red, twelve hundred pounds of heated steam can kill you mighty dead.
So if you ever write their songs, or try to tell their tale, the very words
would make you hear, a fired furnace\'s wail. And people as a general rule,
don\'t hear of men or steel, so little is heard about the place, that sailors
call the hole, But I can sing about this place, and try to make you see, the
hardened life of men down there, cause one of them is me.
I\'ve seen these sweat soaked heroes fight, in superheated air, to keep their
ship alive and right, though no one knows they\'re there. And thus they\'ll
fight for ages on, till war ships sail no more, amid the boilers mighty
heat,
and the turbines hellish roar, so when you see a ship pull out, to meet a
war
like foe, remember faintly if you can,
"The men who sail below"
I got that from a friend in Navy, don\'t forget what they\'ve done to our country (or sometimes for the whole world for that matter).
