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01 Feb 07 - 10:17 AM (#1954581) Subject: Lyr Add: The Ship-Keeper (C. Fox Smith) From: Charley Noble THE SHIP-KEEPER (Poem by Cicely Fox Smith) When dusk comes round again And red goes down the sun, And all the stevedore's men Have finished up and gone; When silent all and dark The tugs and lighters lie, And derricks stand up stark And still against the sky; When solemn, slow as doom, The dock policeman's tread Wakes echoes in the gloom Of each deserted shed — Old Mike, his nightly tale Of tasks at length complete, Limps slowly to the rail On lame rheumatic feet, Lights his black clay, and leans And thinks, as old men do, Of bygone things and scenes His lusty manhood knew; Until, when stars begin To gleam by two and three, He sees the ships come in That no one else can see — The ships that wait no tide, The ships that take no steam, But to their moorings glide As quiet as a dream; The ships he served of old, When blood was young and hot, Long wrecked or scraped or sold, Their very names forgot; The ships that raced the wool, The grain, the jute, the tea, Titania beautiful, And proud Thermopylae; The "Lochs," the Irish "Stars," Old fleets of far reknown, Green's, Wigram's, Some's, Dunbar's, The pride of London town. Cold Alps of shining snow, He knows them one and all, The fast ships and the slow, The big ships and the small. Knows too each glimmering queen Or craven king they bore, Each dragon gold and green, Armed knight or turbaned Moor. Lost shipmates of old years Along their bulwarks throng; Old speech of theirs he hears, Old yarns, old scraps of song. The last rose leaves the skies; The river breeze blows chill; But still with age-dimmed eyes He dreams, as old men will, His pipe between his lips; Still, dreaming, seems to see The lost and lovely ships That no one sees but he. Notes: From SAILOR'S DELIGHT, edited by Cicely Fox Smith, published by Methuen & Co., London, UK, © 1931, pp. 74-77. The shipkeeper was typically an old retired sailor that would act as watchman on a ship in port in between cargoes. The shipkeepers along Victoria's waterfront, in the early 1900's, were C. Fox Smith's chief source of yarns for her poetry and short stories that were focused on the Canadian Pacific Northwest. Gordon Morris (UK) has adapted this poem for singing as recorded on FULL SAIL, © 2002. I'd like to dedicate this song to an old Mudcat friend Joe Theriault ("Jets") who has slipped his cable. Cheerily Charley Noble |
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01 Feb 07 - 02:18 PM (#1954812) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Ship-Keeper (C. Fox Smith) From: The Sandman thankyou.my grandfather sailed on the thermopylae. |
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01 Feb 07 - 04:02 PM (#1954923) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Ship-Keeper (C. Fox Smith) From: Charley Noble Captain Birdseye- You're more than welcome! Gordon Morris and his partner Peter Massey (Marrowbones) are based in Chester, just south of Liverpool. I'm sure they'd be delighted to swap CD's with you, as they have with me. I also like their setting for "Admiral Dugout," C. Fox Smith's tribute to an old retired admiral who lobbies hard to be remobilized in World War 1 and is delighted to be appointed captain of an armed trawler. Cheerily, Charley Noble |
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03 Feb 07 - 10:39 AM (#1956543) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Ship-Keeper (C. Fox Smith) From: Charley Noble This song seems worth refreshing one more time before it sinks to oblivion. What I like about C. Fox Smith's nautical poetry is the wealth of detail, combined with the sentiment. You really get a window to another long gone world. Too often the contemporary sea songs like this one are just sentiment, and one is hungry 30 minutes later! Cheerily, Charley Noble |
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22 Jun 15 - 06:54 PM (#3718324) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Ship-Keeper (C. Fox Smith) From: bradfordian The Ship Keeper (CFS) sung by Trim Rig and a Doxy (YouTube) |
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23 Jun 15 - 06:13 AM (#3718390) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Ship-Keeper (C. Fox Smith) From: Rumncoke Verse four - surely that is graven (carved) king, not craven (cowardly) |