Cicely Fox Smith Poems

Limehouse way, the other day, as I did chance to be,
I met with a hairy sailorman was shipmates once with me,
...

In Salthouse Dock as I did pass one day not long ago,
I chanced to meet a sailorman that once I used to know;
...

Here the inscrutable purpose of my God
Set me, to be to men a thing of hate,
Watching the way where the weary steamers plod,
...

Who hath heard the legions tramping?
Who hath heard the chargers champing?
Who hath looked upon the arming of the band?
...

There's a soft wind singing in the idle rigging,
High tide splashing, and a young pale moon,
Lights in a window and a fiddle jigging
...

Dark night upon the leaguered town,
And on the hidden foe;
Anxious the distant nation waits
For news of weal and woe.
...

By thronging mart and lonely hill,
By bridle-path and broad highway,
I, follower of the shadow, still
Follow a shadow night and day.
...

The Ship of State is strongly built,
Seaworn and seasoned well
By ages gone of storm and stress,
And foeman's shot and shell.
...

In Casey's Baltic Tavern Mike and I
Heard an old shellback praising to the sky,
With uncouth sailor oaths from foreign lands,
...

When dusk comes round again
And red goes down the sun,
And all the stevedore's men
Have finished up and gone;
...