A Croon on Hennacliff
A Croon on Hennacliff
Original Text
Rev. R. S. Hawker, The Cornish Ballads And
other Poems (Oxford and London: James Parker, 1869): 28-30. Facsimile Reproduction
with an intro. by Kay J. Walter and Terence Allan Hoagwood. Delmar, N.Y.:
Scholars' Facsimiles, 1994. PR 4759 H9C6 1869a Robarts Library
2 Unto his hungry mate, --
4 There be corpses six or eight.
5Cawk! cawk! the crew and skipper,
6 Are wallowing in the sea:
7So there's a savoury supper
8 For my old dame and me."
II.
9"Cawk! gaffer! thou art dreaming,11Would rend the yelling seamen,
12 From the clutching billows hold.
13Cawk! cawk! they'd bound for booty
14 Into the dragon's den:
15And shout, for `death or duty,'
16 If the prey were drowning men."
III.
17Loud laughed the listening surges,18 At the guess our grandame gave:
20 From the thunder of their wave.
21And mockery followed after
22 The sea-bird's jeering brood:
23That filled the skies with laughter,
IV.
25"Cawk! cawk!" then said the raven,26 "I am fourscore years and ten:
27Yet never in Bude Haven,
28 Did I croak for rescued men. --
29They will save the Captain's girdle,
30 And shirt, if shirt there be:
31But leave their blood to curdle,
32 For my old dame and me."
V.
33So said the rushing raven,34 Unto his hungry mate, --
35"Ho! gossip! for Bude Haven:
36 There be corpses six or eight.
37Cawk! cawk! the crew and skipper,
38 Are wallowing in the sea:
39O what a savoury supper,
40 For my old dame and me."
Notes
1] Croon: murmured tune or humming. Hennacliff: the highest cliff in Cornwall. The Bencoolen, a ship out of Liverpool for Bombay, wrecked at Bude on Oct. 2, 1862. Hawker's sarcasm at lines 27-28 reveals contempt for the Bude men who would not help him launch a life-boat to save the thirty men who were lost at sea and whose bodies, when they washed ashore, he helped bury (C. E. Byles, The Life and Letters of R. S. Hawker [John Lane, the Bodley Head, 1906]: 395-99). Back to Line
3] Bude Haven: town on the north coast of Cornwall, north-west of Launceston. Back to Line
10] wreckers: salvage men. Back to Line
19] Boanerges: the two sons of Zebedee, named by Jesus, and signifying sometimes a loud debater or preacher. Back to Line
24] Lundy Light: presumably the lighthouse on Lundy, Devon, a granite island at the entrance of the Bristol Channel. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1864
Publication Notes
All the Year Round 12 (Sept. 10, 1864): 108.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2002
Rhyme