C. Fox Smith Sea Poems (PermaThread)

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 09 Sep 04 - 07:52 AM

Thanks, Amos! Port o' Dreams has been fun to work with.

Sure wish she'd left a diary around, but probably some thoughtless niece or nephew tossed it into the trash. At least Danny McLeod managed to rescue a manuscript of her poems from a used book dealer in Sydney; there were several unpublished poems in that with some notes in the margins.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: GUEST,Charley Noble
Date: 13 Sep 04 - 09:56 AM

Here's a link to my personal website for a MP3 sample of my arrangement of "Mariquita":Click here!

I think this one is a keeper as well.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 07 Feb 05 - 06:35 PM

So there's a total of five C. Fox Smith poems that I've adapted for singing with new MP3 samples on my personal website:Click here!

The songs include:

Flying-Fish Sailor
Outward Bound
Limehouse Reach
Port o' Dreams
Mariquita

One can also purchase a CD of UNCOMMON SAILOR SONGS from that same website which also includes poems by John Masefield, Robert Lewis Stevenson and others that I've arranged for singing. There is also a set of completely original songs.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 03:58 PM

I was curious which book "Hastings Mill" was from, as posted above by Joe Offer. I finally tracked it down in my latest acquisition, SAILOR TOWN. The correct reference should be: Words by Cicely Fox Smith, as published in SAILOR TOWN, pp. 56-57, ©1919.

"Hastings Mill" is a reference to a saw mill in the Vancouver, BC, area. Cicely would often walk over to the mill and watch the tall ships being loaded with lumber at its dock.

You can sing the poem to the same tune that Bob Zentz uses for "The Portsmouth Road."

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: Lyr Add: HASTINGS MILL (C. Fox Smith)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jun 05 - 02:05 PM

Joe posted the original version of this poem above. I've now had some more time to process it for singing. I'm now using "Cheerokee Shuffle" as the tune rather than Bob Zentz' "The Portsmouth Road", added a refrain line and dropped one verse, and changed some of the wording. Here's the result (copy and paste into WORD/TIMES/12 to line up chords):

HASTINGS MILL

(Original words by Cicely Fox Smith, 1919, in SAILOR TOWN, pp. 56-57
Adapted for singing by Charles Ipcar © 2005
Tune: traditional "Cherokee Shuffle")

C--------------------------------Am----C---------------Am
As I went down by Hastings Mill, I lingered in my going,
----F------------------C---------Am--------C------------------Am
To sniff the smell of piled-up deals and feel the salt wind blowing,
------C------G----------C
And feel the salt wind blowing;
----F----------------C-------------------------F-----------------C
To hear the cables fret and creak, and the rigging stir and sigh –
F---------------------Am------------C--------------------Am
"Shipmate, oh, my shipmate!" as in those days gone by,
----C--------G----------C
As in those days gone by.

As I went down by Hastings Mill, I saw a ship there lying,
All about her masts and yards the sunset clouds a-flying,
The sunset clouds a-flying;
And I mistook her for the ghost of one I used to know –
"Shipmate, oh, my shipmate!" so many years ago,
So many years ago.

As I went down by Hastings Mill, I heard a fella singing,
While chipping off the deep-sea rust, above the tide a-swinging,
Above the tide a-swinging;
And well I knew the queer old tune and well the song he sung –
"Shipmate, oh, my shipmate!" as when the world was young,
As when the world was young.

And past the rowdy Union Wharf, and by the still tide sleeping,
To a randy dandy deep-sea tune my heart in time was keeping,
My heart in time was keeping;
To the thin far sound all in the dusk of an anchor watch a-hauling –
"Shipmate, oh, my shipmate!" with evening shadows falling,
With evening shadows falling!

(Instrumental break for two lines)
And the voice of one I knew so well, across the harbour calling –
"Shipmate, oh, my shipmate!" with evening shadows falling,
With evening shadows falling!


Notes:

The wood-hulled, steam-powered tug Haro was built in Vancouver for B.C. Mills (Hastings Mill) for its harbor service.

The Hastings Shingle & Manufacturing Company: After a bit of re-organization, the Woods-Spicer Company was bought out for $1,200 by the Hastings Shingle & Manufacturing Company in 1906. Hastings was owned by the McNair brothers.

In 1896 Julius M. Fromme had been appointed supervisor of Hastings' operations on the woods. The Hastings upper mill off Dempsey Road was built in 1904 and closed in 1910.

Thomas Allen interviewed the McNairs to buy the Hastings Mill and paid $2,000 in down payment to $20,000. He quickly turned his eyes to real estate so he sold his interests to his partner J.M. Fromme who formed the Lynn Valley Lumber Company.

Location: on the South Shore of Burrard Inlet, near Powell Street.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Aug 05 - 05:11 PM

I note that there is a Hastings Mill Museum in Vancouver and I'm planning to visit it when I'm in the area in a couple of weeks. Dave McArthur is hosting a song party for me in nearby Richmond in Steveston Village on Thursday, August 25th, and it's a good bet that I'll be singing "Hastings Mill", "Lumber", "Pacific Coast" and "The Old Fiddle" that evening.

We then go on to Victoria where I'm planning to make a similar presentation at the Nautical Song Circle that takes place at the Bent Mast Pub in the James Bay neighborhood on Saturday, August 27.

Here's one of Cicely's descriptions of Victoria Harbour when she was hanging out there in the early 1900's:

From Cicely Fox Smith's SAILOR-TOWN DAYS, 1923 pp. 163-164


"You can sit on the edge of the Outer Wharf at Victoria, and fish for black bass with a bit of cotton rag, and watch the great ships come in from the sea with the wonder of the East in their holds.

Over across the Strait of Juan de Fuca the summits of the ranges of the American mainland are flushed with faint rose, for it is only at sunset that the black bass bite. There is a smell of forest fires in the air, and a glow on the flanks of the remote mountains, and a light wisp of cloud that means miles of ravaged woodland and an inferno of smoke and flame in which men are fighting, parched and blackened like demons. The light on Brotchie Ledge has just begun to wink leisurely, and far out on Race Rocks the lighthouse answers it with his occulting beam.

The sun has gone down into the China Seas in a great fiery golden pomp, like the sea-burial of an old Norse king, and a splendid afterglow, slow and solemn as a funeral march, goes flooding up to the zenith like the glow of a funeral pyre; and on the edge of it hangs a lonely star. A small moon drifts like a feather dropped from an archangel's wing. A riding-light has begun to glimmer in the rigging of the anchored windjammer in the Royal Roads."

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 01 Sep 05 - 10:50 AM

Well, I'm back from a wonderful visit to the Pacific Northwest. Here are some working notes from my research in Victoria, Vancouver, and Steveston Village:

Notes by Charles Ipcar, 8/30/05
DRAFT
On the Trail of C. Fox Smith


Cicely Fox Smith was resident in the Victoria, B.C. area from 1904 to 1913. She earned her living, as she described, by "thumping a typewriter, first for the BC Lands Department and then working for an attorney" in downtown Victoria. Much of her many volumes of poetry and short stories drew inspiration from her stay. In the evenings she would walk along the wharfs and engage the shipkeepers and other nautical denizens in long conversations. She collected many fine yarns, traditional sea shanties and other sea songs, and became a master at recreating "the sailor's voice" in her poems and short stories.

Unfortunately, whatever personal journals Smith kept have not resurfaced, and she was certainly the kind of person who would have kept a comprehensive journal. There is a manuscript of some of her pre-1920 poems that did survive, thanks to her sister Margaret Scott Smith, and it's now safe in the hands of an ardent admirer and traditional style singer, one Danny McLeod of the UK. Whatever she did while she was in residence in BC can only be surmised from her many descriptions in her poems and passages from her other books.

This summer (2005) I too walked the streets of the Victoria waterfront, with short forays to the City of Vancouver and neighboring Steveston Village. Standing at the site of one of her favorite haunts Victoria's old Outer Wharfs, now identified as Shoal Point, I too watched the "old sunset glory setting all the clouds aflame" and "the snow-crowned peaks that gleam" of the Olympic Mountains across Juan de Fuca Strait. What a heavenly sight! And the sight is still to be enjoyed by anyone who walks there. However, as she feared "The ports I knew grown strange" is an apt description for what has happened to Victoria's working waterfront. Most of the old buildings have been torn down and replaced with high-rise hotels and condominiums. Only a dozen or so remnants survive of the buildings she would have remembered from where she worked as a typist.

She described her law office as being "up two flights of stairs in Wharf Street", "next door but one from a ship-chandler's establishment." One of those shops nearby during her residence was most likely McQuade's Ship Chandlery Shop, 1250 Wharf St., now part of the building occupied by the famed Chandlers Sea Food Restaurant. The cross references would be Yates Street and Bastion Square. Some of the other buildings she described in the neighborhood that she used to see during her lunch break included the Occidental Hotel, the Panama Saloon, and the junk shops in nearby Chinatown. Further north down Shore Street was likely one of her other favorite haunts the Rock Bay Lumber Mills, where she'd watch the longshore crew loading lumber into tall ships. This arm of the Inner Harbour was also where the tugboats would berth and the old sealing schooners she was so fond of were moored. Just below Wharf Street were warehouses and the shipping offices for many single ship firms such as the clipper ship Antipode, identified by their modest white on black sign boards. And on her block there was an abundance of wholesale grocery shops, hotels and saloons, including the Ship Inn (one of Victoria's first drinking establishments).

In Vancouver, there was the famous Hasting Lumber Mill, the subject of her poem "Hastings Mill," located at the foot of Dunlevy Street along the waterfront of Burrard Inlet, adjacent to the Union Steamship Company Wharf; the mill office was salvaged and floated in 1930 on a barge to a park on English Bay, 1575 Alma Street, where it now serves as a small museum.

In the Village of Steveston, now part of the bedroom community of Richmond, I could find no trace in their archives of a "Steveston Lumber Mill," one that Smith explicitly mentioned in her poem, "Lumber." In the early 1900's there were over a dozen salmon canneries along that waterfront and a boat building yard but no evidence of a saw mill. Nor could I find, while searching the BC archives, a Steveston Mill elsewhere in B.C. However, I have subsequently learned from Jon Bartlett of the VFFS Shanty Crew that:

"The CP line from Vancouver to Steveston, built in 1902, passed through the new mills at Eburne (now South Vancouver), allowing it to ship lumber south to be loaded at Steveston onto sailing ships bound for Europe."

There is a reference to Steveston in another poem "Port o' Dreams":

She went missin' many a year since bound from Steveston home with deals.

"Deals" are inexpensive planks. So at the very least there was lumber being shipped out from Steveston during the period when Smith was resident in BC.
We had a great time wherever we went sharing the musical arrangements of C. Fox Smith's poems with folks at various house concerts, house parties, and other musical gatherings.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble, back in Maine!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 02 Dec 05 - 05:02 PM

Shantyfreak and I have also begun a column on Newpoetry.com, sister website to Oldpoetry.com, which focuses on nautical poetry by C. Fox Smith and others. There are links to a wide variety of nautical poems: Click here for a knotty and nautical time!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: Lyr Add: THE BLUE PETER (Cicely Fox Smith)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Dec 05 - 03:14 PM

As mentioned above William Pint set "Blue Peter" to his original tune with very little modification of Cicely Fox Smith's original words:

THE BLUE PETER (Pint)

(Words by Cicely Fox Smith, 1914, in SONGS AND CHANTIES, Elkin Mathews, pp. 24-25
also in SMALL CRAFT, ©1919, p.p. 98-99
As sung by William Pint and Felicia Dale recorded on ROUND THE CORNER, © 1997)

Last night when I left her, my true love was weeping
For sorrow at parting, but parting must be:
What use for her tears, what use to be keeping,
A lad by the fireside, that follows the sea?

For the cold day's a-breaking, the town hardly waking,
The moon like a ghost, in the pale morning sky,
Blue Peter is blowing to tell you we're going,
And the gulls in the river all calling good-bye!

The last hawser's cast, the tug-whistle's blowing,
The shore growing dim, in the mist and the rain:
And wide, very wide, is the world where we're going,
And long, very long till you see us again!

Farewell and adieu to you - still we'll be true to you,
Still we'll remember, wherever we be, -
Hope we'll be meeting you, hope you'll be greeting
Some day your sailor, home from the sea!

All in the cold morning, all in the grey weather,
On the sheds, and the shipping, the rain slating down,
All hands to the capstan bars, roaring together
A stave for farewell, to the folk of the town:

Hong Kong and Vancouver, Callao and Suva,
The Cape and Kowloon, it's a very far cry,
From the slow river creeping, by houses all sleeping,
And the gulls in the wake of us, calling good-bye!
Calling good-bye!

The original words are:

Words by Cicely Fox Smith, 1914, in SONGS AND CHANTIES, Elkin Mathews, pp. 24-25
also in SMALL CRAFT, ©1919, p.p. 98-99


The Blue Peter (C. Fox Smith)


Last night when I left her my true love was weeping
For sorrow at parting, but parting must be:
What use for her tears, and what use to be keeping
A lad by the fireside that follows the sea?
For the cold day's a-breaking, the town hardly waking,
The moon like a ghost in the pale morning sky,
And the Blue Peter's blowing to tell ye we're going,
And the gulls in the river all calling good-bye!

The last hawser's cast and the tug-whistle's blowing,
The shore growing dim in the mist and the rain:
And wide, very wide, is the world where we're going,
And long, very long till ye see us again!

Farewell and adieu to ye - still we'll be true to ye,
Still we'll remember wherever we be, -
Hope we'll be meeting ye, hope ye'll be greeting
Some day your sailormen home from the sea!

All in the cold morning, all in the grey weather,
On the sheds and the shipping the rain slating down,
All hands to the capstan bars, roaring together
A stave for farewell to the folk of the town:
Hong Kong and Vancouver, Callao and Suva,
The Cape and Kowloon, it's a very far cry
From the slow river creeping by houses all sleeping,
And the gulls in the wake of us calling good-bye!

Bob Zentz more recently has adapted the same poem to a version of the traditional forebitter "We'll Rant and We'll Roar" which I think is more in keeping with what Cicely might have been hearing in her head:

Words by Cicely Fox Smith in SMALL CRAFT, ©1919, p.p. 98-99
As sung by Bob Zentz
Tune: traditional "We'll Rant and We'll Roar"

The Blue Peter (Bob Zentz)

Last night when I left her my true love was weeping
For sorrow at parting, but parting must be:
What use for her tears, what use to be keeping
A lad by the fireside that follows the sea?
For the cold day's a-breaking, the town hardly waking,
The moon like a ghost in the pale morning sky,
And Blue Peter's blowing to tell ye we're going,
And the gulls in the river are calling good-bye!

Farewell and adieu to ye - still we'll be true to ye,
Still we'll remember, wherever we be, -
Hope we'll be meeting ye, hope ye'll be greeting;
Some day your sailor come home from the sea!

The last hawser's cast and the tug-whistle's blowing,
The shore growing dim, in the mist and the rain:
And wide, very wide, is the world where we're going,
And long, very long till we see you again!

Farewell and adieu to ye - still we'll be true to ye,
Still we'll remember, wherever we be, -
Hope we'll be meeting ye, hope ye'll be greeting;
Some day your sailor come home from the sea!

All in the cold morning, all in the grey weather,
On the sheds and the shipping, the rain slating down,
All hands to the capstan bars, roaring together
A stave of farewell to the folk of the town:

Farewell and adieu to ye - still we'll be true to ye,
Still we'll remember, wherever we be, -
Hope we'll be meeting ye, hope ye'll be greeting;
Some day your sailor come home from the sea!

Hong Kong and Vancouver, Callao and Suva,
The Cape and Kowloon, it's a very far cry
From the slow river creeping, by houses all sleeping,
And the gulls in the wake of us calling good-bye!

Farewell and adieu to ye - still we'll be true to ye,
Still we'll remember, wherever we be, -
Hope we'll be meeting ye, hope ye'll be greeting;
Some day your sailor come home from the sea!

Last night when I left her, my true love was weeping
For sorrow at parting, but parting must be:
What use for her tears, and what use to be keeping
A lad by the fireside that follows the sea?

Farewell and adieu to ye - still we'll be true to ye,
Still we'll remember, wherever we be, -
Hope we'll be meeting ye, hope ye'll be greeting;
Some day your sailor come home from the sea!

It's a really haunting song and I may just have to learn it. Hopefully Bob Zentz will finally get it together to get his CD of C. Fox Smith songs printed so more folks can appreciate the fine work he's been doing with her poems for years.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Dec 05 - 03:21 PM

I should mention that my second recording of Cicely Fox Smith poems that I've adapted for singing is now available from my website: Click here!

The poems include:

Rio Grande
Lee Fore Brace
Lumber
Hastings Mill
The Old Fiddle
Rosario
Pacific Coast

I've also recorded Alan Fitzsimmons' musical adaptation of "So Long."

There are also 8 other songs, some original, some traditional, and some by other composers.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: nutty
Date: 22 Feb 06 - 02:57 PM

The Old Poetry site you directed us to is wonderful ..... thanks Charlie ... another excuse not to do the housework.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Feb 06 - 04:36 PM

Nutty-

I've been meaning to send you the link to Oldpoetry. Please feel free to comment on as many poems as you like there. I know you've very knowledgeable about CFS and her poems.

I believe you also have some of her rarer books, and might be able to at least more closely date some of her poems. We have found that the poems do vary a little, from publication to publication.

Shantyfreak and I have full editing powers and would be happy to correct anything in her bio or in her poems.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 13 Mar 06 - 10:22 AM

Here's an updated link to some 200 of Cicely Fox Smith's poems as they were published which are being posted by myself and Shantyfreak on the Oldpoetry website: Click here for website

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 08 Apr 06 - 01:04 PM

The collection of Cicely Fox Smith at Oldpoetry has just hit 300, with at least another 50 to go. Check out the link above if you're interested in the original words of her poems and some notes on where they were published.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 09 May 06 - 11:02 AM

The collection of Cicely Fox Smith at Oldpoetry has just hit 360. There are probably another 50 or so published poems outstanding, primarily from her rare earlier poety books. Neither Shantyfreak nor I have copies of them so the project is stalled in terms of completing the collection.

These are the poetry books we know about that we don't have:

Songs Of Greater Britain [p:1899
The Foremost Trail [p:1899
Wings Of The Morning [p:1904

If you can help in completing this project, please PM me here at Mudcat or go to my personal website for my e-mail address: Charley Noble Website

If you are aware of other CFS poetry books that we might have missed, please feel free to contact me as well.

Here is our present list of published works, including non-poetry books:

Songs Of Greater Britain [p:1899
The Foremost Trail [p:1899
Wings Of The Morning [p:1904
Lancashire Hunting Songs [p:1909
The City Of Hope [f:1914
Songs In Sail [p:1914
Sailor Town: Sea Songs & Ballads [p:1914
The Naval Crown [p:1915
Fighting Men [p:1916
Small Craft [p:1917
Singing Sands (introduction only?)[p:1918
Rhymes Of The Red Ensign [1919
Songs And Chanties 1914-1916 [p:1919
Peregrine In Love (short novel)[f:1920
Ships And Folks [p:1920
Rovings: Sea Songs & Ballads [p:1921
Sailor Town Days [1923
Sea Songs And Ballads 1917-22 [p:1923
A Book Of Famous Ships [p:1924
The Return Of The "Cutty Sark" [p:1924
Ship Alley [p:1925
Yarns of an Old Shellback (intro) [p: 1925
Full Sail [p:1926
Tales Of The Clipper Ships [p:1926
A Book Of Shanties [p:1927
A Sea Chest (ed) [p:1927
Ancient Mariners [p:1928
There Was A Ship [p:1929
Ocean Racers [p:1930
The Thames [n:1931
Sailor's Delight [p:1931
True Tales Of The Sea [p:1932
Anchor Lane [p:1933
All The Other Children [p:1933
Peacock Pride (with Margaret S SMITH) [p:1934
Adventures And Perils (ed) [p:1936
All Clear Aft (includes short story PONTIFEX [p: 1936
Three Girls In A Boat (with Margaret S SMITH) [p:1938
All The Way Round: Sea Roads to Africa [p:1938
The Ship Aground [p:1940
The Voyage Of The Trevessa's Boats [p:1940
The Story Of Grace Darling (bio) [p:1940
Wayfaring Folk [p: 1945?
Here And There In England With The Painter Brangwyn [p:1945
Thames Side Yesterdays [p:1945
Country Days And Country Ways, Trudgin Afoot in England [p:1947
Painted Ports [p:1948
Knave-Go-By [p:1951
Ship Models [p:1951
Seldom Seen (with Madge S SMITH) [f:1954
The Valiant Sailor [p:1951-1955)
The Man Before the Mast (editor) [p:?

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 May 06 - 02:01 PM

Here are some reviews selected by one of CFS's publishers from the period 1914-1919:

From SONGS AND CHANTIES, edited by Cicely Fox Smith, published by Elkins Mathews, London, ©1919. p. 232.

Spectator

"No one, not even Mr. Mansfield, has written finer sea ballads or come closer to the heart of those who go down to the great waters. In any anthology of the sea Miss Fox Smith's 'Ballad of the Matterhorn,' 'Bill the Dreamer,' 'The Last of the Sealing Fleet' and 'Rathlin Head' must occupy a high place."

Times

"It is not likely that many lovers of sea-songs have missed the voice of Miss Fox Smith, but if they do not know her 'Songs in Sail' let them read 'Sailor Town' – the dancing colours and fresh scents of the harbour, the rush of the sea and wind, the cheery pathos of the outward-bound, the sailor's homesickness – all this is carried on the rhythm of her verses with a vividness hardly equaled by any other verse writer of the day."

Spectator

"Miss Fox Smith is one of the few people living who can write a real 'chanty' combining a mastery of sea-lingo with perfect command of sea rhythms."

Times

"These are the right stuff."

Evening Standard

"Ballads and songs of the war, reeking of spindrift and spume, breezy and direct as those who go down to the sea in ships."

Nautical Magazine

"Mr. C. Fox Smith must be congratulated on his dainty little volume of poems, 'The Naval Crown.' We remember how well we enjoyed the author's 'Sailor Town' and can say that the enjoyment and high opinion we then formed of the author have been in no way lessened by the present volume."

Navy

"The writer's vocabulary of sea phrases is striking and characteristic; the technicalities proclaim a real sea lover, and the tone and colour are only excelled by the lilt of the verses."

Times

"Miss C. Fox Smith's naval verse … shows here, as in her former collection, her exceptional métier for apt metrical celebration of the spirit, the humour of the pathos of war and of the fighting man."

Syren

"An excellent little collection of ballads referring to various phases of the war, some of which our readers have doubtless made the acquaintance of in the pages of 'Punch.' The 'Rhyme of the Inisfail' … is the gem, and an excellent one, of the collection. The author has a capital vein of humour."

Manchester City News

"The sea songs have the breath and the sound and the motion of the waters in them."

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 05 Jul 06 - 08:18 PM

The collection of C. Fox Smith poems on the Oldpoetry website has just hit 400. The most recent additions are from one of her earliest publications, 1899. Many of these early poems are "militantly" pro-British or pro-imperialistic. She was quite offended at the socialists such as the Pankhursts that she attended school with in Manchester, as she noted later in her book All The Way Round: Sea Roads to Africa [p:1938.

Here's the link again to her collection on the Oldpoetry website: Click here for website

We still need help finding copies of three of her earliest poetry books:

Songs Of Greater Britain [p:1899
The Foremost Trail [p:1899
Wings Of The Morning [p:1904

We know there are library copies in the UK but what we really need is for someone there to photocopy the poems and mail them to myself or to Jim Saville

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 03:59 PM

I have just returned last October from the UK, where I succeeded in copying Songs Of Greater Britain (1899) and Wings Of The Morning (1904) at the British Library in London. Nobby had previously sent me photocopies of The Foremost Trail (1899) which I am very greatful to receive.

I would estimate that there are at least 100 more poems in the two works I've most recently acquired to post to the Oldpoetry website, which would bring the total of her published works up to at least 500 poems.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 04:11 PM

Great!

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 04:15 PM

Thanks!!

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 01 Nov 06 - 10:47 PM

There are a few more poems in the CFS manuscript that Danny McLeod has which apparently were never published, and a few poems that were published in periodicals but not re-published in her poetry books. We'll make a good faith effort to round 'em up as well. But I'll be busy for a couple of weeks just posting what I have.

The folks at Chantey Cabin had a couple of suggestions for who might be interested in publishing the anthology, and that remains one of my priorities. The format of each poem would be similar to how Jim and I have posted them at the Oldpoetry website.

We haven't decided how to order the poems. Alphabetical by title is the simplest system. If we do it book by book chronologically, some of the poems will appear more than once, sometimes with small changes, other times with substantial changes, and sometimes identical. We would appreciate suggestions from those familar with her work.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: The Sandman
Date: 02 Nov 06 - 12:35 PM

In my humble opinion, Sailortown is her best poem of the sea. Dick Miles.

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: The Sandman
Date: 02 Nov 06 - 02:13 PM

In case people are unaware, Sailortown was the first (CFS) sea poem set to music. I wrote a tune for it in 1987, before anyone else in the folk revival had set her poems to music.

Bob Roberts recorded the Robin Adair (Race of Long Ago) around this time but assumed it was traditional.

I first performed Sailortown at Shrewsbury festival in 1987, Jim MAGEAAN was present at the festival, heard me perform it, and history was made. Shortly after JOHNNY COLLINS recorded Sailortown, and as a result many people started putting the poetry of C. Fox Smith to music.

Dick Miles.

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 02 Nov 06 - 05:17 PM

Dick-

You do deserve credit for rediscovering C. Fox Smith and channeling a splendid tune to her poem "Sailortown." Andrew MacKay and Suffolk (Sussex!) Carole showed me a vinyl copy of that recording, which they treasure, while I was recently visiting them at their home at the end of the Gower Peninsular in South Wales.

I now have a CD version of that recording that I got via Chantey Cabin, and I'm enjoying the learning of the song with my concertina.

However, with regard to your assessment:

"In my humble opinion, Sailortown is her best poem of the sea."

There are so many strong candidates for "best poem of the sea" in her collection that I would hesitate to single one out. But you are certainly entitled to your opinion.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Dave Earl
Date: 02 Nov 06 - 05:41 PM

Er thats Sussex Carole Charley.

I'm sure it's only a slip of the fingers on the keyboard but I thought we should get the record straight - and they are friends of mine from when Carole was a fellow resident at The Lewes Arms.

Never mind all the above - keep up the good work.

Dave

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: The Sandman
Date: 02 Nov 06 - 06:23 PM

Yes, Charley, you're right, a lot of her poems are very good.
The Lewes Arms, I played there a few times, HARVEYS BITTER, I could do with a pint of that now, a good singing crowd, fond memories.

NOT so cheerily , Dick Miles

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Charley Noble
Date: 05 Nov 06 - 04:36 PM

Dave-

"Sussex Carole" it is. The fingers work faster than the mind sometimes. We'll be seeing Carole and Andrew in Maine next Thursday when they are doing a house concert at Sinsull's house in South Portland.

Dick-

Here's a virtual Harvey's Bitter for you!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Nov 06 - 10:23 AM

thanks.

Subject: RE: C. Fox Smith Sea Poems
From: Shantyfreak
Date: 01 Dec 06 - 01:39 PM

Interesting question that:

Which is Cicely Fox Smith's best poem?

I grant the claims of Sailortown as the best song (i.e. marriage of words and music) and have often listened to Dick Miles playing it live and on his recordings. Thanks, Dick.

But for best poem, no music, I personally have had Lee Fore Brace at the top of my list since I first came across her work, thanks to Pinch of Salt's album Hand Spike Gruel & Sea Boot Duff. Thanks Danny and co.

I stripped away the music and now use it as a recital piece.
So that is my vote. What's yours?

Shantyfreak

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

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 19 Mar 08 - 10:36 AM

refresh

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 - 10:27 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 - 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: 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: 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.