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Shipmates (1914)


Good-bye and fare ye well; for we'll sail no more together,
Broad seas and narrow in fair or foul weather:
We'll sail no more together in foul weather or fine,
And ye'll go your own way, and I'll go mine.

O the seas are very wide, and there's never any knowing
The countries we'll see or the ports where we'll be going,
All across the wide world, up and down the sea,
Before we come together, as at last may be.

Good-bye and fare ye well — and maybe I'll be strolling
And watching the ships there and the crews a-coaling,
In a queer foreign city and a gay gaudy street;
And who but yourself will I chance for to meet?

You'll blow up from Eastward, and I'll blow in from the West,
And of all the times we ever had, it's then we'll have the best,
Back from deep sea wanderings, back from wind and weather,
You and me from all the seas, two friends together!

Good-bye and fare ye well: may naught but good attend ye
All across the wide world where sailor's luck may send ye,
Up and down the deep seas, north and south the Line,
And ye'll go your own way, and I'll go mine!

Notes

From SONGS & CHANTIES: 1914-1916, edited by Cicely Fox Smith, published by Elkin Mathews, London, UK, © 1919, pp. 25-26.

The sentiment here has almost a contemporary ring to it, or at least it would fit right in with the songs composed during the 1960's folk music revival. One wonders if this is a poem that the poet composed while parting from her sailor friend Dan, who was later lost at sea.

The header graphic entitled "Changing a Jib" is NOT of the poet but of another young woman Elisabeth Jacobsen who crewed aboard one of the last commercial grain carriers, the four-masted barque Parma, in 1933: from LAST OF THE WIND SHIPS, Alan Villiers, published by George Rutledge & Sons, London, © 1935, p. 132

Charley Noble

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Comments


  • EyeRaven
    November 28, 2006
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    Exquisite

    Lovely, and adorable...
    the sweet sadness does ring in its old, favourable mature way..
    It's the well structured and witty usage of words that had me captivated all along, in that charming emotion stirred sea of love...(though departing).


    • Charley Noble Moderators member
      November 28, 2006
      Edit | Reply
      Raven Dark-

      I couldn't agree with you more! Try the link in my other comment if you'd like to hear how the poem sounds when I sing it.

      Charley Noble

      • EyeRaven
        November 28, 2006
        Edit | Reply

        OWWWWW

        So ...what do I say...
        so lovely, and with your vividness in tune of voice, which gave it credibility, and now I know what is the insturment you hold in that picture, you were actually photographed while singing it..
        wow....I fear my foreign expressions did not quite describe your awesome work, however I trust you are feeling what I felt...
        wish I could have sang that with you...

        (Actually I was..
        Good bye and fare ye well,
        We sail no mooore together...haha, lovely, truley lovely)..

        (I have a nice tone of voice by the way...no bragging intended)..
        but it was sentimental, and hopeful...
        very nicely played, and sung..

        Be well, poet artist..
        Mister Charley, a pleasure to meet you..

        Raven Dark.

  • Charley Noble Moderators member
    January 15, 2006
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    Here's a link to my singing adaptation of "Shipmates (1914)": home.gwi.net/~ipbar/lyr_list.htm

    This one is fresh from the factory.

    Cheerily,
    Charley Noble