"Rathlin Head" is another beautiful poem by Cicely Fox Smith that a friend of mine, Mike Kennedy, has set to music, and which I have begun working up as well.

However, none of us are sure how best to pronounce "Rathlin." Is the "h" silent or not? Best to know before we make idiots of ourselves, for that particular reason!

Here's the original poem with some notes:

Rathlin Head

We left the murk of Merseyside, we left the flaring town;
All smouldering red by Spanish Head the stormy sun went down;
We saw the lamp blink out and in the Mull o' Galloway,
And at dead of night to Rathlin Light a long good-bye did say –

On a bitter cold night in the morning watch,
A little before the day!

Black deep of night without a star both sky and sea did fill;
So cautious crept we through the dark our engines near stood still;
All salt like tears on rope and rail the sea mist clinging grey . . .
And Rathlin Island close to port, Kintyre to starboard lay –

On a bitter cold night in the morning watch,
A little before the day!

We heard across the blind black tide the lighthouse boom forlorn,
All night we heard a Glasgow barque blowing the old cow's horn;
And groping slow we passed her by a bare ship's length away –
"A near thing with the barque," was all I heard the Old Man say –

On a bitter cold night in the morning watch,
A little before the day!

All houseless stretch the unfenced fields that cold and green do roll
Where winds do herd the berg and floe which calve about the Pole;
Oh, peace be on the small green fields of a land that's far away,
And on the little farms therein where folks a-sleeping lay –

On a bitter cold night in the morning watch,
A little before the day!

And oh, good-bye the narrow seas and forelands loud wi' foam!
There's many a turning in the road that brings the sailor home;
Full speed once more our engines throbbed as faint the east grew grey,
I turned my face to Rathlin Head, a long good-bye to say –

On a bitter cold night in the morning watch,
A little before the day!

Notes:

From Songs and Chanties: 1914-1916, edited by Cicely Fox Smith, published by Elkin Mathews, London, UK, © 1919, pp. 95-97. This poem may be mirroring Cicely's thoughts as she left Liverpool aboard a steamer in 1911 bound for Montreal, Canada. It makes a nice "bookend" with "Long Road Home."

"Rathlin Light" is located on Altacarry Head, Rathlin Island, North Channel, Northern Ireland. "Kintyre" is a peninsula in western Scotland, 16 miles across the channel.

I'll post the various singing versions with chords and MP3 samples when they stabilize.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble