"The Sweepers" is a poem written by Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

 (1865-1936), and set to music by the English composer Edward Elgar

Edward Elgar

Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...

 in 1917, as the fourth of a set of four war-related songs on nautical subjects for which he chose the title "The Fringes of the Fleet

The Fringes of the Fleet

The Fringes of the Fleet is a booklet written in 1916 by Rudyard Kipling . The booklet contains essays and poems that Kipling wrote about nautical subjects in World War I....

".

Like the others in the cycle, it is intended for four baritone voices: a solo and chorus. It was originally written with orchestral accompaniment, but was later published to be sung with piano accompaniment.

The poem was called by Kipling "Mine Sweepers", and is about the British ships called minesweepers

Minesweeper (ship)

A minesweeper is a small naval warship designed to counter the threat posed by naval mines. Minesweepers generally detect then neutralize mines in advance of other naval operations.-History:...

 which cleared the seas of enemy mines in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

.

External links

• Sea Warfare - The Fringes of the Fleet Notes by Alastair Wilson