The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #84795   Message #1566937
Posted By: Charley Noble
20-Sep-05 - 01:06 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Rosario (C. Fox Smith)
Subject: Lyr Req: C. Fox Smith Poem Fragment?
I'm been trying unsuccessfully to identify what poem by Cicely Fox Smith is related to
a fragment quoted by sea shanty collector and editor Joanna Colcord.

"Rosario" is a little port in Argintina on the Rio de la Plata where Capt. Lincoln Colcord and his family aboard the barkentine Clara E. McGilvery arrived in 1889 to deliver and pick up cargo.

Years after, in "Childhood at Sea," Colcord says the whole experience was brought back when her friend C. Fox Smith wrote:

"Oh, wake her – oh, shake her! – and it's good-bye to the shore,
With the north wind in her topsails and the whole wide world before…
Sou'west an' a half west and steady as you go….
For we've a long road to travel to Rosario!"

I've gone through several of C. Fox Smith's poetry books and can't find a reference to "Rosario" or the lines above. I don't have all her poetry books but I may well have missed the lines in one of the ones I do have.

I would appreciate any help.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble