Ayuh -- Charlie gave me the original Cecily Fox Smith words for this poem. There was quite a bit of "tweaking" to sing the poem, actually. I'm glad I transcribed it before Charlie so kindly got me the copy of the poem. Now I suppose I have to learn it -- I've had it in my head all night and morning (and for the last several weeks since Dave and Anni were in York, Maine).

It's on Dave Webber and Anni Fentiman's new CD "Away From It All." Words credited to Cecily Fox Smith and tune to "Trad." The notes say they got it from the singing of Bob Roberts, bargeman, but they left off where he's from. (Typo.) They said he said he got the song from an engineer he worked with. And Dave said he tweaked the words yet further to make them "more acceptable in modern times."

But here it is.

Linn

---

RACE OF LONG AGO
from a poem by Cicely Fox Smith ("Racing Clippers"),
sung by Dave Webber & Anni Fentiman

Now I've never done much good in me time
I've been a waster through and through.
And the only things that I've ever done
Was the things I wanted to do.
Like blowing me chances and wasting me pay
Of these things I've had me share
But I was one of the Clansmen's crowd
When we raced the Robin Adair.

There was a big tough Scouser and a cockeyed Swede
And a kid from the County Clare
And we made up the starboard watch
When we raced the Robin Adair.
Murphy fell from a topsail yard in the Pole Star years ago.
And Clancy died with a knife in his side in a bar in Callao.
Bill got married and settled down and the rest are God knows where.
But that was all so long ago when we racedthe Robin Adair.

We was yardarm to yardarm in Sidney Head
And then she started to blow.
And soon the Clansmen was reeling them off
At 15 knots or so.
The old man grinned as he faced the wind,
Saying, "This is the weather for her."
"Me lads," he cried, "You've seen the last
Of the wonderful Robin Adair."

Til early one morning when the sun arose
And the day had just begun.
We spied a ship hauled down astern
And a-coming along like fun.
The old man swept his glass to his eye
And you should have heard him swear
For up from the south with a bone in her mouth
There came the Robin Adair.

So we started piling the canvas on
And it had to stay there, too.
'Twas a fair old breeze in the morning time
But, by God, that night it blew.
I've seen some strange things in me time
But it surely made me swear.
Crackin on sail in a Biscay gale
Just to beat the Robin Adair.

Now we made the London river at last
By 12 of the Wapping clock.
I counted the chimes as we tied her up
To the buoys in the London dock.
We made that race in 69 days
With a tale of a time to spare
But that was all so long ago
When we raced the raced the Robin Adair.

Now these old ships have gone to chips
Nigh 40 year or more.
She was sold away to a foreign bunch
And the blighters they run her ashore.
But somewhere south of the Ramarees
And north of the Straits LeMaire
With the fishes cruising around her ribs
There lies the Robin Adair.