vocabulary: We Have Fed Our Seas

Subject: vocabulary: WE HAVE FED OUR SEAS
From: Margo
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 11:36 AM

Kipling's text was put to music by Peter Bellamy. There are a couple of lines that I don't quite understand;

"We have strawed our best to the weeds unrest" Or at least that is how the words appear in the DT. I'm not quite clear on using straw as a verb. I thought from listening to a recording, that it was "the wave's unrest".

"From the Dulcies to the Swin". I imagine these are geographical locations?

"Where the ghastly blue lights flare" Would those be signals of distress?

I entered "Kipling" in the search to find the song. Any help is greatly apperciated.

Margarita

Subject: RE: vocabulary: WE HAVE FED OUR SEAS
From: Penny
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 12:17 PM

I think strawed may be dialect for strewed. And the ghastly blue lights could be St. Elmo's Fire - over to the sailors..

Subject: RE: vocabulary: WE HAVE FED OUR SEAS
From: Margo
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 07:28 PM

I thought St. Elmo's fire was believed to be a good thing. If it was, I don't think it would be ghastly....... Anyone else?

Subject: RE: vocabulary: WE HAVE FED OUR SEAS
From: ddw in windsor
Date: 27 Apr 99 - 11:40 PM

No expertise here, but Penny's post about strawed being dialect for strewed made me wonder if "ghastly blue light" couldn't be in fact "ghostly blue light," possibly the aurora borealis.

ddw

Subject: RE: vocabulary: WE HAVE FED OUR SEAS
From: Pete M
Date: 28 Apr 99 - 04:27 AM

Margarita,

Straw is an archaic verb meaning to strew; there is a river Swin in Belgium, but I think the most likely one meant is the shoal ground of that name S of Harwich. I don't know of a shoal called The Ducie, but I suspect that that is what this is also. "Blue lights" were pyrotechnics carried by merchantmen as distress signals. The ship in the poem is aground and calling for help.

Pete M

Subject: RE: vocabulary: WE HAVE FED OUR SEAS
From: Penny
Date: 29 Apr 99 - 07:36 AM

I thought Pete M would know about the blue light. The strawing line, I think, means that the best of our young men have been scattered in the sea, stirred by, or stirring the weeds. Or, indeed, the best of many nations. i was appalled when I chanced across the merchant navy memorial near the Tower of London, a long wall of names, the name of each ship, followed by the names of its crew, and so many of them from the colonies. I don't know the date of the poem, but it has the sadness of the man who lost his children.

Subject: RE: vocabulary: WE HAVE FED OUR SEAS
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 29 Apr 99 - 07:48 AM

"Strawed" sounds like mulching (with straw) around crops to stop weeds growing. I can't remember the poem offhand, so I don't know if that's what he meant. I've looked here but it's not listed under that title.

Steve

Subject: RE: vocabulary: WE HAVE FED OUR SEAS
From: Penny
Date: 29 Apr 99 - 07:52 AM

It's part of a set of verses with different themes and metres under the general heading "Song of the Dead". Maybe a the, there

Subject: RE: vocabulary: WE HAVE FED OUR SEAS
From: Margo
Date: 29 Apr 99 - 10:03 AM

Thank you all! I understand the lyrics now. Can't sing 'em without knowing what they mean!

Margie

Subject: RE: vocabulary: WE HAVE FED OUR SEAS
From: SeanM
Date: 29 Apr 99 - 11:24 AM

On the subject of St. Elmo's fire, as far as I've seen, it was considered to be good at some times, bad in others... specifically, I've seen several references to crews giving up hope of surviving after seeing the 'fire playing through their rigging in the face of a storm... some sailors saw it as a mark that the ship would be sunk in the storm. Of course, if they weren't willing to go up in the rigging to reef sails, it could very quickly become a self fulfilling prophecy.

M

Subject: RE: vocabulary: WE HAVE FED OUR SEAS
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 15 Feb 18 - 10:43 PM

Ancient bump for 3-of-4 maybe:

Kipling used "Blue Light" in two related ways. Here it's same as modern flares for signaling, perimeter security, emergency lighting &c.

In the Gunner Barnabas narrative or "Blue Light Bobs." &c it's a nickname for a Christian officer with "Blue Light" intensity evangelism.

"Strawed" is Scots for strewed.

"Swin" is the old name for the northern approach to the Thames, aka The King's Channel.

Dunno about "Dulcies."

Subject: RE: vocabulary: WE HAVE FED OUR SEAS
From: DaveRo
Date: 16 Feb 18 - 02:13 AM

It's "From the Ducies to the Swin"

Possibly Ducie Island, Pitcairn, probably the most southern but of the empire. 3rd Baron Ducie was a British politician and naval officer. The poem was published in 1896 at the time of a dispute over it with the USA so it may have been 'in the news'. But why Ducies - plural?

Robert Ducie, Mayor of London in the 17th century, and Thames Conservator, wrote regulations covering the Thames estuary, Medway, and downstream. So Ducies may refer to some part of the tidal upper Thames, at the other end from the Swins.

Subject: RE: vocabulary: WE HAVE FED OUR SEAS
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 16 Feb 18 - 04:15 AM

What I get for not going back to the source. No "L."

The "Pitcairn Group" (Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie, Oeno) was the "Ducie Group."

That's it!