Lyr Req: When Ham and Shem and Japhet (Harry Kemp)

Subject: REQ:help with psuedo-shanty?
From: MMario
Date: 14 May 99 - 09:00 AM

The is a shanty page out on the web that has the following qoute at the top:

When Ham and Shem and Japhet, they walked the capstan round,
Upon the strangest vessel that was ever outward bound,
The music of their voices from wave to welkin rang,
As they sang the first sea shanty that sailors ever sang.
[traditional]

Anyone know it?

MMario

Subject: RE: REQ:help with psuedo-shanty?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 16 May 99 - 10:57 PM

Hugill uses that passage at the end of his preface in his Shanties Of The Seven Seas. He credits it from "Chanteys & Ballads" by Harry Kemp around the 1920's. Harry was a poet, nicknamed the 'Poet of the Dunes' around Provincetown, Mass. I hope this helps a little. Barry

Subject: RE: REQ:help with psuedo-shanty?
From: MMario
Date: 17 May 99 - 08:53 AM

Thanks Barry! Gives me a place to start looking if I ever get to a place with "hardcopy".

MMario

Subject: Lyr Add: WHEN HAM AND SHEM AND JAPHET (Harry Kemp)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 05:43 PM

Barry's correct. This poem by Harry Kemp is from his book CHANTEYS AND BALLADS, published by Brentano's, New York, © 1920, pp. 81-82.

When Ham and Shem and Japhet: A Sailor's Song

When Ham and Shem and Japhet
They walked the capstan round
Upon the strangest vessel,
Was ever outward bound,
The music of their voices
From wave to welkin rang:
They sang the first sea-chantey
That seamen ever sang:
They sang of towns they'd been to,
Of girls that they had known,
Of what they'd done as children,
Of how the years had flown,
Of fights they'd had, and friendships,
Of many a hearty spree --
The same as every sailor
That sails upon the sea . . .

Now Noah, he was sitting
Alone and glum, below,
A-puzzling just a little
Why things were ordered so,
(For, though his soul accepted
What God commanded still,
At times he knew misgivings
As every good man will) --
When up above he heard them
A-singing, outward bound,
And walking, walking, walking,
Walking the capstan round --
Then, just as quick, his worry,
Passed like a gust of wind,
And he shinned up the ladder
And left his doubts behind,
And with his great beard flowing,
His grey robe pulled a-skew,
He walked the capstan with them:
He started singing too!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: REQ:help with psuedo-shanty?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 06:12 PM

Harry Kemp's Chanteys and ballads, sea-chanteys, tramp-ballads and other ballads and poems (1920) is at Internet Archive (click here).

Subject: RE: REQ:help with psuedo-shanty?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 27 Feb 07 - 08:39 PM

Masato Sakurai-

Thanks so much for the link to this libraries archive website. I wasn't aware of this one.

It's likely that more any more of the source books we're interested in may be equally accessible in the near future by this type of digital archives.

Charley Noble