We hope that everyone is having a most merry Christmas. Here is a repost from 2014 of a poem by C. Fox Smith adapted for song by Charlie Ipcar. Cecily Fox Smith was a Victorian poet best remembered for her poems about ships and sailors in the last days of the age of sail. She wrote more than 600 poems which were published in more than two dozen volumes. In recent years, her work has seen a revival as her poems have inspired musicians to write music to her verses. Over 70 of her poems have been adapted as songs, including this one.
By Cicely Fox Smith from Rhymes of the Red Ensign, edited by Cicely Fox Smith, published by Hodder and Stoughton, London, © 1919, pp. 71-72. Adapted for singing by Charlie Ipcar, © 12/26/08 Tune inspired by Christmas Day in the Morning
We shipped a sea on Christmas night,
On Christmas night, on Christmas night!
From stem to stern the decks flowed white –
On Christmas night till the morning!
“One more like that,” our mate did say,
“And she’ll not last till the break of day,”
So deep she rolled, so ill she lay –
All the night long till the morning!
So black the night, the gale it screamed,
On Christmas night, on Christmas night!
Like gushing wounds her swing-ports streamed;
On Christmas night till the morning!
All ice the yard was where we clung,
The frozen shrouds shrill carols sung,
Like harps the twanging backstays rung –
All the night long till the morning!
Exciting, intense and the last line makes you smile. There is so much there in so few words. Thanks for letting us know about Cicely Fox Smith.