“There is society, where none intrudes, / By the deep Sea, and Music in its roar”

[larryhammer]

Aye, capt'n, Sea Poetry Monday keeps sailing steady as she goes.


Hastings Mill, Cecily Fox-Smith

As I went down by Hastings Mill I lingered in my going
To smell the smell of piled-up deals and feel the salt wind blowing,
To hear the cables fret and creak and the ropes stir and sigh
(Shipmate, my shipmate!) as in days gone by.

As I went down by Hastings Mill I saw a ship there lying,
About her tawny yards the little clouds of sunset flying;
And half I took her for the ghost of one I used to know
(Shipmate, my shipmate!) many years ago.

As I went down by Hastings Mill I saw while I stood dreaming
The flicker of her riding light along the ripples streaming,
The bollards where we made her fast and the berth where she did lie
(Shipmate, my shipmate!) in the days gone by.

As I went down by Hastings Mill I heard a fellow singing,
Chipping off the deep sea rust above the tide a-swinging,
And well I knew the queer old tune and well the song he sung
(Shipmate, my shipmate!) when the world was young.

And past the rowdy Union Wharf, and by the still tide sleeping,
To a randy dandy deep sea tune my heart in time was keeping,
To the thin far sound of a shadowy watch a-hauling,
And the voice of one I knew across the high tide calling
(Shipmate, my shipmate!) and the late dusk falling!


Cecily Fox-Smith (1882-1954) also wrote novels and children's books but was noted mostly for her maritime poetry, often of an imperialist bent. Hastings Mill was the main lumber mill and shipping warf of Victoria, Vancouver Island, BC, where she worked for a year in 1912-13 (aside for a stint there and in Alberta, she lived most of her life in England).

(Of note to puddleshark: also by the author)

Subject quote from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage canto IV st.178, The Byron.

Comments

[cmcmck]

Not the Hastings I know which is a Sussex fishing port which I like a lot as a place.

I've just been posting Charles Causley!

[larryhammer]

That is indeed a different Hastings.

[sovay]

Chipping off the deep sea rust above the tide a-swinging

That's lovely. I don't think I've encountered this poem before.

To a randy dandy deep sea tune my heart in time was keeping

So now I have this stuck in my head: The Young Tradition, "Randy Dandy-O."

(Of note to puddleshark: also by the author)

I like that! And her bones'll never flicker blue on any 'longshore fire

[larryhammer]

It was her most anthologized piece in the first half of the last century, but seems to have rarely appeared since then. The main poem, I mean -- I've only stumbled across the bonus piece in the site linked to.

[sovay]

It was her most anthologized piece in the first half of the last century, but seems to have rarely appeared since then.

It's not in my big 1981 anthology of sea-poetry, which is a massive oversight.

[larryhammer]

Indeed.

[genarti]

Oh, that's lovely! Wonderfully atmospheric.

[larryhammer]

Innit?

[shewhomust]

I first came across Cecily Fox-Smith through the singing of the Keelers. One of the band was an enthusiast, and had put together an album of his settings of her poems.

[larryhammer]

That might be worth tracking down.