The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #21877   Message #1596501
Posted By: Charley Noble
03-Nov-05 - 11:02 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Lee Fore Brace (C. Fox Smith)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: CAPE STIFF (C. Fox Smith)
This seems to to me to be a "sister poem" to the "Lee Fore Brace," describing a similar loss of a good friend in a storm off Cape Horn.

CAPE STIFF
(Poem by Cicely Fox Smith from SMALL CRAFT, by Cicely Fox Smith, George H. Doran Co., © 1919, pp. 105-106
Previously published in SONGS IN SAIL AND OTHER SHANTIES, © 1914)


Cruel is the sea, and the hardest thing of all
Is her taking and her leaving, and the way it seems to fall,
How always it's the best men who have to bear the call…
Ah, Cape Stiff, and the big seas pouring!

And of all good sailormen that use the deep sea
Where would you find a better or a truer lad than he
That we lost in the dirty weather from the fourmast barque Trulee
By Cape Stiff, and the great gale roaring?

It was all hands on deck that night, to heave her to;
The sails were frozen hard, the cold wind bit you through,
You couldn't hear a man beside you speak, so loud it blew,
Near Cape Stiff, and her yard dipping under!
The night was black as hell…I never saw him go…
It wasn't till the dawn broke I'd time to ask and know
The sea that swept us out and back had rolled him far below
By Cape Stiff, in the great seas' thunder.

And fair weather or foul weather it's all one to him,
Though the sea's in the half-deck and the empty bunk aswim,
It's a long watch below for the weary head and aching limb
By Cape Stiff, and the loud wind crying!

And now we're rolling home before the good Trade Wind,
But I'm thinking night and day how we've left him far behind –
Him that was so merry, him that was so kind,
By Cape Stiff, in the cold deeps lying!

Notes:

"Cape Stiff" is the old sailor's nickname for Cape Horn.