C. Fox Smith Sea Poems (PermaThread)

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Shantyfreak
Date: 07 Jul 08 - 10:37 AM

I always think of myself as a lonely voice in the wilderness reading this thread entitled C. Fox Smith Sea POEMS.
Yes the lady's words convert into some fantastic songs and some fine folk have done that but take time to read them (preferably out loud) without the tune and see how magical they can be without the musical straight-jacket.

Words and music can live together
Please don't get me wrong.
But sometimes we need to remember
The difference between poem and song.

http://allpoetry.com/poem/1760101
Jim

Subject: LYR.ADD.: Mobile Bay
From: Charley Noble
Date: 01 Jul 08 - 08:59 PM

Bradfordian has found another CFS poem that had been overlooked in Punch Magazine. I find it interesting in that it combines her interest in traditional shanties with reflecting back on her life:

Mobile Bay

There's a song has gone through my mind all day,
As a song will sometimes do;
It takes me back to the years of youth
And the men and the ways I knew –
To the men I knew in a time that's gone
And a ship of old renown,
When I sailed on a day to Mobile Bay,
Where they roll the cotton down!

I remember the feel of the noonday sun
And the warm wet Indian smells –
Rum and sugar, niggers and mud,
And the dear Lord knows what else:
The shuffle and stamp of the naked feet
On the levees once again:
They all come back from the years that were
To the sound of that old refrain.

"Roll the cotton down, bullies,
Roll the cotton down!"
I am far away from the dingy street
And the drab grey Northern town:
I remember the yarns my shipmates spun
And the great old songs we sung,
The way of a ship at a twelve-knot clip
In the years when the world was young.

It's the width of a world from here, worse luck,
It's the half of my life since then,
And it's ill to tread, so I've heard said,
A trail you've left again;
And I may sail east, or I may sail west,
Where the folks are yellow or brown,
But I'll sail no more to Mobile Bay
Where they roll the cotton down.


From Punch Magazine, Volume 186, February 28, 1934, p. 248.

This poem contains phrases from the traditional stevedore/halliard shanty "Roll the Cotton Down," a version of which the poet collected and published in A Book of Shanties, © 1927.

The poem is prefaced with the note "An Old Song Re-sung."

Here's a link to how I've adapted this poem for singing: Click here!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 30 Jun 08 - 09:28 AM

Getting back to the poem "Ship Logs" I have to confess that the first tune that surfaced for me was "The Dealer." LOL

Anyone want to finish out the chorus?

Know when to stamp an' go,
Know when to run!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Jun 08 - 10:43 AM

Barry-

Wasn't "The 'Ard" what they called the waterfront area in Plymouth, the old sailortown which is now probably gussied up with "Cutting Edge" retail outlets, shops with cosmetics and undergarments, not to mention cellular phone dealers. Ah, the ports we knew grown strange, the ships we knew laid up an' lost!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Barry Finn
Date: 29 Jun 08 - 06:31 AM

Sorry Mysha, just me being cute. Ard as in south'ard, or as in me being a blow(h)'ard. No one should ever take me too seriously or two literally.

I love your "calves icedancing on St. Jude's day". Where would they do that exactly now that I know when they do it?

Barry

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Mysha
Date: 29 Jun 08 - 06:08 AM

Hi,

Barry, I'm sorry, but all I have at hand is a concise Oxford dictionary, and it doesn't give a word "ard". Would you have a different example?

Jake, I didn't see your message while I was writing mine. Yes, I understood about the Roarin' Forties and the idea the whole sentenced conveyed. It was just that one bit I wasn't sure of. But you put it very well, which will help forming the imagine in my mind.

Charley, me actually being recorded would probably coincide with calves icedancing on Saint Jude's day. I really meant just "sing". But I'll let you know when either day arrives.


                                                                Mysha

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Barry Finn
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 10:52 PM

During rough weater "south" could sound like "salt" (this is an example only) so south would no be used in lieu opn south'ard. South'ard, vocally carries easier, farther without the "w" when the "o" in south'ard is a soft "o" rhyming with the "a" in ard. Sailors language was cafefull of not being redundant, being economical in it's use, being as least confusing as possible (lardboard was eventually dropped for a few reasons, one it's being to close sounding at the end to starboard (no the only reason though). Sailors lanaguage being some what a mongrel multi-lingual was honed down by the man before the mast & they went with what ever worded.
I great chapter on Sailor's Langauge is laid out by Horace Beck in his "Folklore & the Sea" pub. Mystic Seaport.

Barry

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 08:41 PM

Mysha-

"the south'ard" was just the way that old-time sailors pronounced "southward." Why they didn't simply say "South" is not to be reasoned out. CFS was a master at channeling sailor slang into her poems. There were many old salt admirers of her verses who could not believe that she wasn't a sailing master herself.

"St. Paul Rock" was a major reference point for sailing ship masters heading south from England for Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, who would like to periodically check their navigation via landmarks, such as isolated islands of known location.

When you do record this one, please send me a copy so we can add it to the CFS Discography.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Mysha
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 05:52 PM

Hi,

Ah, didn't know either reference; thanks for the help.
But that would mean "the south'ard" was "the southward": Beyond the St. Paul. But the two have the same number of syllalbels, so why did she use that. Is "south'ard" maybe pronounced similar to "southern"?

As for the tune: It's not an existing one, that I know of - some poems just seem to suggest melody and rhythm. I've seen several CFS poems that were too heavy - where you heard only the meter - but this one does have that tune quality.

Thanks,
                                                                Mysha

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Anglogeezer
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 05:31 PM

Mysha,

"So the Roaring Forties to the south'ard of St. Paul Called you in the eighties;"
The Roaring Forties is that area of the Southern Ocean to the south of all the continents, (I know, S.America goes to 56 South) a rough, tough region where the wind blows ever round the globe with nothing to stop it. St Paul?? I guess, if it exists, may be a port or island to the north of the Roaring Forties and has no great significance other than to pad out the line.
The roaring log fire draws his mind back to the 1880's, when as a younger, fitter man, he voyaged around the world.


"Sweethearts on the tow-rope"
When the ship was homeward-bound and going at a cracking pace then the crew would say that it was their sweethearts pulling them home.

regards
Jake
Such was the strength of their affection for one another!!

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 05:17 PM

Here's the Wikipedia description of St. Peter and Paul Rocks:

"The Saint Peter and Saint Paul Islets, officially the Arquipélago de São Pedro e São Paulo, is an archipelago of the State of Pernambuco, in Brazilian Federation. It is an archipelago of small islands and rocks in the Equatorial Atlantic Ocean, 870 km from the Fernando de Noronha Island and 1,010 km from the city of Natal on Brazil's northeastern coast. The islets expose serpentinized mantle peridotite on the top of one of largest megamullion of the world, being the unique abyssal mantle exposure above sea level. All of the islets and rocks are designated an environmental protection area. The main economic activity around the islets is tuna fishing."

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 05:13 PM

Mysha-

My first guess is that "to the south'ard of St. Paul" is a reference to a pile of rocks in the Atlantic known as St. Paul Rocks.

"Sweethearts on the tow-rope, with a pull there's no denying" is a direct reference to the sailor's fancy that when one is homeward bound, the ship is drawn faster by the sailortown gals pulling on an imaginary tow-rope.

"Stamp and go" is a reference to a way that sailors march down the deck with a line to haul up a yardarm or a heavy sail.

It's easy to fit tunes for CFS poems but don't rush it. Try out a number of them and think about the poem. But good luck with your work. I think it's an interesting poem but be warned her poems are addictive. ;~)

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Mysha
Date: 28 Jun 08 - 04:20 PM

Hi,

Reading the lines of Ship Logs a tune presented itself. I might like to sing it one day, but for that I need help with two expressions that don't make sense to me on this side of the North Sea. Would someone explain to me:

* to the south'ard of St. Paul
* Sweethearts on the tow-rope, with a pull there's no denying,
Stamp and go together, draw you home to Plymouth Sound.

Thanks,
                                                                  Mysha

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 04:09 PM

ALERT: this poem was subsequently proven to have been composed by Admiral Ronald A. Hopwood, RN (1868 - 1949) in 1896.
Bradfordian just dug up another CFS poem in Punch Magazine, one which was overlooked because it didn't have her initials. But I have no doubt that she is the composer:

Ship Logs

Ship logs for firewood – take them as you find them,
Broken ends of timber that are good for nothing more,
Lying in the breaker's yard, working days behind them;
You should know the feeling now you've settled down on shore!
Bought your little farm again, left the sea for good now?
Playing at forgetting it, pretending not to care?
Draw the curtains closer, man, and fetch a load of wood now,
Pile the hearth with ship logs and – light them if you dare!

Ship logs for firewood – listen how they chatter,
Whispering excitedly in many tongues of flame,
Gossip from the Seven Seas, things that really matter,
All the ships you ever loved calling you by name;
Plucking at the lashing that so pitilessly bind you,
Dragging at the anchors that you thought could hold their own,
Dressed in rainbow fashion, they have come ashore to find you;
P'r'aps they know it's bad for you to sit and brood alone.

Ship logs for firewood – louder still and brighter,
So the Roaring Forties to the south'ard of St. Paul
Called you in the eighties; you were younger then and lighter,
Raced the upper-yard men once and fairly beat them all;
Hark! Your sailing orders; there's the pennant up there flying
Ninety yards astern of you to track the homeward bound;
Sweethearts on the tow-rope, with a pull there's no denying,
Stamp and go together, draw you home to Plymouth Sound.

Ship logs for firewood – only fit for burning;
Even as they're dying see how cheerily they blaze;
Think of that a minute, and you're in the way of learning
Something that will see you through the dreariest of days!
Get another lorry-load and never have a doubt of them,
Then, with humble gratitude for all they have to give,
Ply the bellows lustily and get their secrets out of them;
Ship logs for firewood will teach you how to live!


From Punch Magazine, Volume 188, December 4, 1935, p. 625.

This philosophical poem was prefaced with the following quote from a shipbreaker's advirtisement:

"For real comfort nothing equals a good fire of old ship logs."

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 31 May 08 - 09:05 PM

Here's a link to the Oldpoetry website where you can wallow in all 624 poems: click here for website

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Shantyfreak
Date: 31 May 08 - 06:45 PM

Thanks to the recnt batch of Punch Poems from Bradfordian we now have 624 poems in the Oldpoetry.com collection.
If any of you have access to other old magazines such as The Spectator, Outlook, Country Life, The Times Literary Supplement and The Windsor Magazine and can find any more stuff to add please get in touch. Especially from her days in British Columbia in the early 20th century.
Jim

Subject: LYR ADD: Queen's Ships, The
From: Charley Noble
Date: 27 May 08 - 08:19 AM

Jim and I have now posted most of the additional Punch poems at the Oldpoetry website (under Cicely Fox Smith), bringing the total to over 600 poems. Here's the last poem that Smith published in Punch Magazine, in tribute to England's new queen as well as beloved ships:

From Punch Magazine, Vol. 224, June 17, 1953, p. 715

The Queen's Ships

Queens' ships, Queens' ships…
Gloriana's mariners,
Putting forth to sea
Afire to beard the Spaniard
Wherever he may be…

Hanging on the Plate fleets' flanks
Like hounds upon the deer,
Roving, raiding, voyaging
Year on weary year.

Leaking, reeking, nail-sick,
Rolling home again
With their scurvy-rotten seamen
And the plunder of the Main.

Queens' ships, Queens' ships…
Stately first rates
Of Good Queen Anne's day,
Plunging deep their gilded bows
In the trampled spray –

With their fighting ship's companies
That well the Frenchmen knew
And their brave bewigged admirals
Of the white, red and blues –

Rooke that gained Giblalter,
And gallant Leake also,
Myngs and stout old Shovell
And honest Benbow…

Queens' ships, Queens' ships…
Little ships and great ships,
The seven seas over,
Keeping up the long patrol
From Davis Straits to Dover.
(Franklin in the Arctic,
Gunboats at Rangoon,
Calliope at Apia
Fighting the Typhoon) –

Cruising, sounding searching,
Keeping clear the seas,
Through the little wars of Britain
And the piping times of peace.

Queens' ships, Queens' ships…
Great ships, small ships,
From the wide seas beckoned,
Gather to salute
Elizabeth the Second…

Ships pass, men pass,
The old ways grow strange,
All but the old faith
That knows not any change –

The old love that alters not
Through all the years between
Valiant Tudor cockleshell
And sleek grey submarine…
Love and faith to England
And to England's Queen!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Saro
Date: 04 May 08 - 11:33 AM

Hi Charley, my copy of The Open Road has at the front "First published by Mr Grant Richards, April 1899. It was reprinted at regular intervals, the 36th edition being in 1926.
Saro

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 May 08 - 04:38 PM

Saro-

Are you sure of the 1899 date?

Here's what we have for "Afoot":

From Wings of the Morning, edited by Cicely Fox Smith, published by Elkin Mathews, London, UK, © 1904, p. 64. Reprinted in Country Days And Country Ways: Trudging Afoot in England, by Cicely Fox Smith, published by F. Lewis, Ltd., Leigh-on-Sea, UK, © 1947, p. 11.

There is a delightful book of poems, edited by E. V. Lucas, entitled The Open Road [Methuen] in which this poem appears along with a note of thanks to Miss Cicely Fox Smith from the editor and that note is dated 1905.

This is one of the few very early poems that the poet ever reprinted in one of her later, and in this case much later, works.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Saro
Date: 03 May 08 - 03:54 PM

Do you have "AFOOT" published in "The Open Road" compiled by E.V. Lucas, first printed in 1899? If not, I'll send a copy.
Saro

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 May 08 - 10:40 AM

Further update from our intrepid volunteer Bradfordian:

Brad has now completed his review of Punch magazine from 1931 to 1954 and reports finding about 65 more poems that are not yet in our inventory.

We'll be reviewing those poems one by one, checking to make sure some have not been re-titled, but I think we can safely say that the complete inventory will easily exceed 600 poems.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 05:01 PM

Gulliver-

Bradfordian reports that he has a fragile copy of Peregrine in Love in his hot little hands. He's now planning to photocopy it and send the results to me. It's too fragile to try do on a flat bed scanner.

We will share how the story ends!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: nutty
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 12:22 PM

According to COPAC there are als copies in the Oxford University Library and the National Library of Scotland

COPAC

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Gulliver
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 12:10 PM

Unfortunately I received word last week that Peregrine in Love is not available from any library in Ireland. The Library Service is now trying the UK for me, but of course this could take some time. Bradfordian got in touch and if there's any way we could share the work I'd be happy to do it. Don

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Shantyfreak
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 09:19 AM

Just to voice my thanks to Bradfordian for his efforts and to Charlie for all the collation work.
We may never unearth all the lady's work but thanks to contributions from Mudcat readers and others we can get most of them.
Jim

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 09:11 PM

Well, thanks to the hard work of one of our Mudcat contacts in the UK, Bradfordian, we are getting access to some C. Fox Smith poems that were published in Punch Magazine (post 1933) but have never been published in her poetry books. Here's one that shares some elements with "The News in Daly's Bar" and "Old Fiddle":

The Rendezvous.

A pub there is of far renown,
A pub that seamen know
In every street of Sailortown
Or sea where they in ships go down
From Clyde to Callao.

And there they say if a man should wait
A twelvemonth and a day
That all his shipmates soon or late
Would surely pass that way.

Both night and noon the door swings wide
To the noisy dockside's din,
Both night and noon with every tide
The sailormen blow in.

They come with talk of ships and men
And lean upon the bar
And yarn and drink and yarn again
Of ports both near and far.

But theirs are ships I never spoke
And trades to me unknown,
And all they see is a grizzled bloke
That drinks his drink alone.

They neither pause nor listen when
From all the oceans home
Between the tides the sailormen
I wait alone for come—

Come in with laughter on their lips
And names I used to know
And speech of men and speech of ships
Forgotten long ago.

No door swings wide to let them through,
No eye but mine can see
That all the shipmates ever I knew
Blow in to drink with me.

Notes:

From PUNCH magazine, Volume 188, Feb 27, 1935, p. 250.

Cicely Fox Smith died April 8th, 1954. I was too young then to offer to buy her a round, Not many other Mudcatters, I dare say, would have even known of her then as a footnote.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 02 Apr 08 - 09:26 AM

It's a race!

There is another C. Fox Smith novel out there called THE SINGING SANDS but from the PUNCH review it didn't appear to be as interesting. Here's the review:

Singing Sands - Review in Punch Magazine, March 6, 1918, p. 160.

When a novelist is modestly content to label his or her
story as " An Episode," one must of course admit that
criticism is to some extent disarmed. At the same time
I feel bound to observe that any episode that includes in
its tumultuous course a murder, an elopement, a romance,
a desertion, not to specify many other considerable events,
3is in some danger of becoming overgrown. All these things
happened during a little visit that Lyndon Travess, the
heroine of Miss C. Fox SMITH'S new story, Singing Sands
(HODDER AND STOUGHTON), paid to some relations who
lived at this spot of the romantic name. It may save you
from the disillusion that awaited Lyndon and myself to
say at once that Singing Sands the place, not the story
by no means carries out the exquisite promise of its beauti-
ful title. As for the book itself, that I must confess has
put me into some sort of quandary ; I think I should be
inclined to compromise by calling it a good tale badly told.
Miss Fox SMITH'S manner seems at times to combine every
possible exasperation; it is lingering where the matter
demands speed, baffling where it should be clear, and
throughout uncertain, and even amateurish, to an almost
maddening degree, and yet one has further to admit that,
in the words of a celebrated tribute, she "gets there all the
same." Perhaps this is the reward of sincerity; in part it
is certainly due to her feeling for atmosphere. Singing
Sands contains some pen pictures of Canadian landscape
that are suggested with quite wonderful beauty. I am
bound to repeat, however, that in this crowded episode of
Lyndon's visit to her remarkable relations you may find
the places more attractive than the plot, the setting than
the very unsatisfactory set. Which of course, being precisely
what Miss Fox SMITH intended, is only another proof that,
against every handicap, she has done what I knew she
would, and readied her objective.

I do have a copy of her earliest novel CITY OF HOPE (copied by a loyal friend from a library in Tasmania!) which was quite disappointing, from my point of view.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Gulliver
Date: 01 Apr 08 - 11:33 PM

I've also put in the library loan request for Peregrine from an Irish library. They'll let me know when (if!) it's available.

Bradfordian, if yours comes through first, could you let me know, so there won't be a duplication of effort?

ta, Don

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 11:14 AM

Bradfordian-

Good to hear from you again!

It's a risky job but someone had to belly up to the bar.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: GUEST,bradfordian
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 10:21 AM

Charley, I've just put in a request to my local library who'll request Perigrenes from British Library (inter library loan) so I hope to hear soon -- unless someone beats me to it.
Brad.

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 08:47 AM

Very true but someone needs to do something about it. I do have photocopies of the first chapter and I'm anxious to know how it plays out. Here's the review of the book from PUNCH magazine:

Review of Peregrine in Love (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) by Cicely Fox Smith
From Punch Magazine, Vol. 159, September 29, 1920, p. 260.

Peregrine in Love

Peregrine in Love (Hodder and Stoughton) is a story whose sentimental title does it considerably less than justice. It gives no indication of what is really an admirably vivacious comedy of courtship and intrigue, with a colonial setting that is engagingly novel. Miss C. Fox Smith seems to know Victoria and the island of Vancouver with the intimacy of long affection; her pen-pictures and her idiom are both of them convincingly genuine. The result for the reader is a twofold interest, half in seeing what will be to most an unfamiliar place under expert guidance, half in the briskly moving intrigue supposed to be going on there. I say "supposed," because, to be frank, Miss Fox Smith's story, good fun as it is, hardly convinces like her setting. You may, for example, feel that you have met before in fiction the lonely hero who rescues the solitary maiden, his shipmate, from undesirable society, and falls in love with her, only to learn that she is voyaging to meet her betrothed. At this point I suppose most novel-readers would have given fairly long odds against the betrothed in question keeping the appointment, and I may add that they would have won their money. Not that Peregrine was going to find the course of his love run smooth in spite of this; being a hero and a gentleman he had for one thing to try, and keep on trying, to bring the affianced pair together, and thus provide the tale with another than its clearly predestined end. Of course he doesn't succeed, but the attempt furnishes capital entertainment for everybody concerned, and proves that Mr. Punch's "C. F. S." can write prose too.

Now you know as much as we do!

I'd be happy to reimburse for copying expenses and mailing costs. But be warned, several intrepid volunteers have failed at this mission, never to be heard from again!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Gulliver
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 11:26 PM

I was informed that Peregine in Love was available on library loan from Cork. Don

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 10:27 PM

Don-

About the only books we haven't got on hand now are two romantic novels, SINGING SANDS and PERGUINE IN LOVE. The latter is probably the more important book in terms of being set in Victoria Harbour, British Columbia where CFS resided for 9 years (1904 to 1913).

I managed to get access to some rough scans of PUNCH magazine. Now all references are complete through 1922. Further scanning is not planned because of copyright problems. So we would appreciate anyone who has access to bound copies of PUNCH to check the index for more poems, following the instructions above.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Gulliver
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 03:12 PM

Hi Charley I PM'd you some time ago with information on books available via library loan in Ireland by C. Fox Smith. If you need further info please PM me. Don

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 10:36 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Shantyfreak
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 08:04 PM

Confirmation of this would be useful. Anyone with the appropriate copies of Punch please please have a look. In particular at the punctuation of Black-wall which is unusual. Volume number and page would be the icing on the cake.
In the early days of Punch, Smith would appear as C.F.S. (Fox-Smith in the index) in the same way as Alan P Herbert was APH, Owen Seaman was OS and so on. In her later career she was more often Miss Fox Smith or just Cicely Fox Smith.
All contributions gratefully recieved.
Jim

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 10:22 AM

Bradfordian-

I believe you have nailed another poem, one that has eluded our search to date. The poet did several poems about figureheads but this one is not among those that Jim Saville and I have harvested.

Many of C. Fox Smith's poems were first published in Punch Magazine, beginning in 1914. These magazines are now available on-line, almost all up to 1920. And the ones published after that date are certainly available in libraries or at used book stores but no one has gone through them systematically. We fully expect that there should be a few more poems to harvest in this magazine and a few other magazines.

Note to those who would consider doing more library research on Punch:

Every six months Punch published an index (June and December) and if a poem by C. Fox Smith were published in the previous issues it would be found lurking under "Fox-Smith."

Thanks so much for bringing this poem, #551, to our attention!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble, co-editor of the Cicely Fox Smith Anthology

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: bradfordian
Date: 17 Feb 08 - 06:19 AM

Charley, do you have this one? Did a quick check & didn't find it!

THE FIGUREHEAD by C. Fox-Smith. ( 'Punch' - 1935 )

In the days when every seaport had its figureheads to show—
Queens, princesses, sea-nymphs, witches, girls of all sorts, row on row,
With their faintly smiling faces and their outstretched pointing hands
Reaching out across the water-lanes that lead to far-off lands—

There was once a ship a-building on the slips down Black-wall way
(Yard and builder, ship and owner, long ago they had their day),
And it chanced one summer morning when the work was nearly done
The Owner came to look at her and see how things went on.

Now this Owner, I must tell you, was a pious sort of bloke
That didn't know the way to smile and never cracked a joke:
He'd an "albert" on his waistcoat and a whisker on each cheek,
And his face was like a sea-boot or the wettest kind of week.

Well, he looked the ship all over and he 'd got no fault to find,
But, says he, "There is a point on which I've quite made up my mind;
I will not have this ship o' mine called after one of those
Outrageous heathen goddesses with hardly any clo'es.

It's not a good example to the people where we trade
To see upon our vessels' bows such things as those displayed;
So let her name be Enterprise or Thrift or Industry,
And I think we can't do better than a figurehead of ME."

So the carver carved his likeness, though he said it was a job
To make a decent showing of that hammick-faced old swab;
And they launched the ship and christened her with homemade rhubarb-wine,
For he said he 'd have no dealings with the product of the vine.

They named her Perseverance, and they sent her out to sea
To show the folks in foreign parts a figurehead of HE,
With a go-to-meeting topper of the real stove-pipe sort
And the kind of stick-up collar Mr. Gladstone used to sport.

And when she got to forty South up comes old Davy Jones
From his house below the water that's all built of sailors' bones,
To see the latest vessel and her figurehead to scan,
For he likes, a nice young female, just like any sailor-man.

But when he clapped his eyes on her it made him fair disgusted;
He cussed like any bucko mate until he nearly busted,
And looked and looked and looked again, and said, "Well, strike me pink!"
Then took and yanked the Owner off and slung him in the drink.

And he drifted and he lifted as the winds and currents chose.
With the seabirds sitting on him from his waistcoat to his nose,
And he lifted and he drifted many a month and many a mile.
Till he fetched up at the finish on a South Pacific isle.

And there the natives found him, high and dry upon the shore,
And they gathered round and stared at him till they could stare no more;
Then they set him on a heap of stones and hung him round with flowers
And said, "Now where's the island that can show a god like ours?"

And fuzzy-headed damsels wearing hardly any clo'es
But wisps of grass and feathers— and uncommon few of those—
Used to come and dance for him o' nights beneath the golden moon
To the singing of the palm-trees and the tide in the lagoon.

And there he sat and scowled at them; and so the years went on
Till, what with time and weather, all the paint off him was gone,
And his whiskers and his collar had got worn so flat and small
That you couldn't recognise him for the Owner's self at all.

Well, at last there came a schooner cruising round the Southern Seas
With a learned bloke on board collecting curiosities,
And when he saw the figurehead he cried, '"Now here's a find;
This here's a tribal totem of a most unusual kind."

And the island folks were thinking that he couldn't be much good
Because he hadn't made it rain just when they thought it should,
So they swopped him for a gramophone as willing as you please,
And he travelled back to England wrapped up careful like a cheese.

He's in Blankby Town Museum now for all the world to see,
With a label underneath him, "Heathen Idol from Fiji";
And if there is a moral in this story strange but true,
Well I only hope you see it—I'll be jiggered if I do!

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Feb 08 - 06:24 PM

Roger-

Thanks for the reminder. "Closehauled on the Wind of a Dream" is a fine CD, and there is an existing thread which you might revive and make a comment on.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 14 Feb 08 - 03:35 PM

Charley(and whoever else might like to know), Bob Zentz's CD of C. Fox Smith poetry set to music is now available. It is titled. "Closehauled on the Wind of a Dream". Bobzentz.com is one source for information.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Feb 08 - 11:46 AM

There will be a Cicely Fox Smith workshop/concert at the Mystic Sea Music Festival this year, 2nd weekend of June, in Mystic, Connecticut. I along with Danny & Joyce McLeod and Bob Zentz will be coordinating the workshop, leading songs, and comparing notes on our research with regard to this great nautical poet.

For more information about this Sea Music Festival and the Mystic Seaport Museum contact: www.mysticseaport.org or call 860-572-5339

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 17 May 07 - 08:21 AM

The CFS Anthology at the Oldpoetry website is now essentially complete, at 550 poems: Click here for website!

I must confess that I found many of her earliest poems excessively patriotic, jinguistic, and imperealistic. It was a hard job to slog through many of them. However, the bulk of her poems were published 1914 and after and reflect a greater world view and were based on personal experience, beyond the museum and library where her youthful fancy took her. And, as I've mentioned above, there are some poetic jewels even among her first three publications.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 09 Apr 07 - 01:06 PM

Here's an example of what I call a precursor sea poem by Cicely Fox Smith, precursor in the sense that in 1900 she was still land-bound and would later composes hundreds of fine nautical poems:

From MEN OF MEN, by Cicely Fox Smith, published by Sampson Low, Marston & Co., London, UK, © 1900, p. 102-104.

An Ocean Tramp

    To-morrow and to-morrow,
    (O the slashing of the foam along the furrow!)
We'll loosen from the jetty when the tide has ceased to flow.
    East, West, North and South we're going, boys,
    Out where the salt winds are blowing, boys,
Along the ocean highways where the little traders go!

I have rocked in Pacific harbours, I have fought the Polar seas,
I have bowed to the Northern tempests,
    I have laughed to the South Sea breeze:
I have driven far to the Northward, through tempest and strain and toil,
To trade with the fur-clad people for their sealskin and their oil.
Iceberg and floe and storm-wind, they pass me scathless by;
For why should the mighty ocean wage war on such as I?

I have run in the dark of the night-time where the cruisers guard the bay,
Into the leaguered harbour making my unseen way:
I have lain by the plague-swept city where a ceaseless death-bell toil'd,
When the sailors die in the foc's'le, and the cargos rot in the hold.
I have sought the palm-fringed islets where the liners come naught nigh,
Trailing the smoke of my funnels over a stainless sky.
And ever I'm tramping, tramping, over the world-wide main,
Ever out from the haven to seek new ports again.

Lagos and sweltering Aden, – I know them one and all, –
Manila's princely harbour, the heights of Montreal,
The shallow roads of Durban, and Riga's fortress strong,
The guarded bay of Capetown, the island of Hong Kong,
The swarming docks of Melbourne, the markets of Bombay,
And virgin South Sea harbours, and drowsy Mandalay.

To-morrow and to-morrow,
    (O the slashing of the foam along the furrow!)
It's out to one or other of the thousand ports I know;
    East, West, North and South we're going, boys,
    Out where the salt winds are blowing, boys,
Along the ocean highways where the little traders go!

Some of the wording above fails to demonstrate familiarity with nautical slang, something it would be hard to criticize in her poems after her return from Victoria, British Columbia, in the fall of 1913.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Mar 07 - 08:12 AM

The anthology of C. Fox Smith poems posted at the Oldpoetry website is now well over 500 poems and should top out at about 550. There may be a few miscellaneous poems that are still outstanding but I don't think we're missing any of her poetry books now.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: LYR.ADD.: Casey's Concertina
From: Charley Noble
Date: 28 Jan 07 - 08:23 PM

Well, I've had to re-edit the list of major poetry books above. I ran across another early one via inter-library loan titled MEN OF MEN (1900) with about 50 more poems. Most of these are also intensely patriotic but there's one about a tramp freighter that is a precursor to her later nautical poems. We'll be posting these poems one by one onto the Oldpoetry website over the next month if you're interested.

In the meantime I thought I'd post another one of her poems that Bob Zentz has set to music, on his long awaited but not yet released CD of C. Fox Smith poems:

Casey's Concertina

There are lights a-flashing in the harbour
From the ships at anchor where they ride,
And a dry wind going through the palm-trees
And the long-low murmur of the tide …
And there's noise and laughter in the foc's'le,
And the bare feet beating out the tune
To the sound of Casey's concertina
Underneath the great gold moon —
Creaky old leaky concertina
Underneath the great gold moon.

There's a milky glimmer on the water,
And the lonely glitter of the stars,
And a light breeze blowing up the roadstead,
And a voice a-sighing in the spars,
A-sighing, crying in the backstays,
And the furled sails sleeping overhead,
And the sound of Casey's concertina,
Singing of a time that's fled —
Leaky old creaky concertina
Singing of a dream that's dead.

Notes:

From SHIPS AND FOLKS, edited by Cicely Fox Smith, published by Elkin Mathews, London, © 1920, p. 52.

This is from a set of poems entitled "The Way of the Ship" which were originally set to music by Easthope Martin, and published as FIVE CHANTEY SONGS, Enoch & Sons, © 1920.

In my opinion, Zentz's musical arrangement is much better than that of Easthope Martin; it's the same tune that Bob uses for "Old Grey Squirrel" by Alfred Noyes.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 10:17 AM

Update on C. Fox Smith Anthology Project (December 30, 2006)

This update is for people like yourself that we believe have an interest in the works of Cicely Fox Smith. For the past three years Jim Saville (UK) and myself (US) have been trying to collect all the poems by this lady. Almost all of her works are now long out of print and are becoming very difficult or expensive to obtain. We are trying to make them all freely available to a wider audience via the internet on the Oldpoetry Website: Click here for website

To date we have posted over 450 of her poems there, complete with references and notes. Anyone can access the poems for free via the above link. To give us an indication of the merits of the work done so far it would be nice to see more feedback on the poems. This is easy to do by the built-in comment section at the end of each poem at Oldpoetry.

There are about 50 more known poems remaining to be posted and these are from her earliest book, Poems Of Greater Britain. That book is in hand and the job of posting these poems will be accomplished soon. We have access to all her major poetry books via our personal collections but there are a few miscellaneous poems which were published in periodicals but were not republished in one of her poetry books. We are searching online sources such as copies of PUNCH magazine via the Gutenberg Website. However, we are also aware of many different periodicals and numerous travelogues, naval histories and anthologies that likely contain examples of her work and would like to obtain copies of any poems included in these if possible. Your help in this job would be greatly appreciated and we can be contacted at [e-mail] or [e-mail] or via the comments section on the Oldpoetry Website

Ultimately we would like to get all these poems published as an anthology so that more people can better access and appreciate her work. The Oldpoetry Website does that job well for now but like most websites it is not necessarily permanent. Both Jim and I have independent back-ups of what is posted there now but that will not be of much use to fans of her work around this wide world if the Website fails.

We would also like to be kept up to date with regard to any other C. Fox Smith projects that you may be working on or are familiar with. We also draw your attention to this poet's forthcoming 125th anniversary, February 1st of this year, and encourage you to celebrate it appropriately.

When we are aware of it, we have also made reference in the poems posted at Oldpoetry to recordings where her poems have been adapted for singing; our references to recordings, however, will be unavoidably incomplete. If there are mistakes that you notice, please draw our attention to them via personal e-mail or the Website comments section. We will be happy to correct any factual errors on the site.


Charlie Ipcar (Charley Noble)

Jim Saville (Shantyfreak)

SOURCES


Songs Of Greater Britain (1899)

The Foremost Trail (1899)

Men Of Men (1900)

Wings Of The Morning (1904)

Lancashire Hunting Songs And Other Moorland Lays (1909)

Sailor Town (1914)

Songs In Sail (1914)

Small Craft (1917)

Rhymes Of The Red Ensign (1919)

Songs And Chanties: 1914-1916 (1919)

Ships And Folks (1920)

Rovings (1921)

Sea Songs And Ballads: 1917-1922 (1923)

Full Sail (1926)

Sailor's Delight (1931)

All The Other Children (1933)

Other Books, Magazines, and Manuscript

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Shantyfreak
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 06:58 PM

I wonder if you got virtually drunk Cap'n?

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 04:12 PM

I virutally enjoyed that virtual pint, yours virtually, till the ship docks.

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 Dec 06 - 02:35 PM

Any candidates to nominate?

Certainly "Lee Fore Brace" is among my favorites along with "Old Fiddle," "Shanghai Passage," "Port o' Dreams," "Outward Bound," "Mariquita," "Shipmates (1914)," "Rio Grand" and "The Long Road Home."

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 06:27 PM

I might be able to narrow the list down to my favorite dozen!

There are well over 430 poems to choose from.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble