Welcome back to the Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.

I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Friday, August 22nd, 2025.

Today's poem is by Rudyard Kipling, and it's called The Ballad of the Clamperdown.

And as Kipling himself explains, this poem has a curious origin story.

He read in a newspaper, an opinion letter, a letter to the editor, by some odd fellow,

who explained that he was absolutely convinced the naval warfare of the late

20th and 21st centuries would actually revert to an older fashion and resembled the naval

warfare of the late 18th century, with all of its rigid battle lines

and boarding actions.

And Kipling thought this was fairly laughable.

And so he wrote a poem satirizing the idea and sent it into the magazine.

But it was initially received as something sincere.

It wasn't until he set the record straight.

A number of years later, the people began to appreciate this poem for what it really was.

Now you can be one of those people.

Here's the ballad of the Clamper Down. It was our warship Clamper Down,

would sweep the channel clean, wherefore she kept her hatches close when the merry channel

chops arose to save the bleached marine. She had one bow gun of a hundred ton, and a great stern gun beside.

They dipped their noses deep in the sea, they racked their stays and stanchions free in the

wash of the wind-wipped tide. It was our warship clamper-down, fell in with a cruiser light,

but carried the dainty Hotchus gun and a pair of heels wherewith to run from the

grip of a close-fought fight. She opened fire at seven miles as ye shoot at a bobbing cork,

...