Dear All,
Debra Wynn (you may remember an excellent paper at the Kent
Conference) has contacted me regarding a find made at the Library of
Congress. Her colleague, Tom Bishop, came across two sheets with a
manuscript poem on them.
It has 25 stanzas (2 stanzas in the margin added as
correction/addition) on sheets numbered 17 and 18 (stamped in the
upper right corner of each sheet, suggesting that they are part of
something else.). There is no title. The text is in ink with some
crossing out and changed wording in the margin in pencil. The text of
the first stanzas of the poem read:
It was a ship of the P&O
Put forth to sail the sea.
Her passengers were all aboard.
Her hold was full & her larder stored
And her speed was ten point three (10.3)
The grey gull whistled in her wake
the black shark rolled beside
And stately as a loaded swan
She moved upon the tide.
Now fill your glass the captain said
Make merry messmates all
For well I know in a week or so
Our ship will win to Galle.[?]
Then ? the bubbling whiskey keg
And eke the pilseneer fine
For though I never eat of lunch
Gadzooks, 'tis well I dine.
They whacked the bubbling whiskey keg
They made the bottles fly
But slowly as a wounded snail
The good ship's wake slid by.
The pistons rose, the pistons fell
The ?? spun round
And yet she toiled like a cattle scow
With half her keel aground.
The children played on the ? deck
A mostly growing band
Of sea ?? born innocents
That never knew the land.
For some they came from the first salon
And some from the second class
But all were gotten in idleness
To make the long fags last.
Does anyone recognise this piece?
Debra had already checked Rutherford, and I am ploughing my way
through Harbord, looking for something similar. Luckily for my own
self esteem, I did guess that the sheets were part of the Holt
bequest, which dates to 1984, so it is possible that this material was
seen by Professor Rutherford, and rejected.
I do have the feeling that the first stanza is familiar, though this
may just be a Border Ballad chiming distantly: "There was a ship of
the North Contrie".
Your help would be appreciated,
John
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