Poems inspired by Cutty Sark – Greenhithe

12 Feb 2016

When Cutty Sark was moored in Greenhithe alongside HMS Worcester as part of the Thames Nautical Training College, she regularly featured in the cadet magazine published by the college, The Dogwatch.

During Cutty Sark’s time in Greenhithe (1938-1953), a number of poems inspired by the ship were reproduced in the publication, including poems written by cadets, members of the Cutty Sark Club of Winnipeg and other admirers of the old clipper.

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The Sailing Ships of England

By Isabella Kiernander

Look down the years! Behold in pageant there

The ships of England! These have played their part

In history. Have sailed and kept your seas,

From Dover’s cliffs unto the westward Start.

And far beyond: have this great Empire made;

Have fed you, kept you safe, pour’d out their best:

And you have sold their gallant souls for scrap,

Nor granted them an honoured, well earn’d rest:

Save Cutty Sark, who, ‘neath a sailor’s care,

Has rown again from battered barquentine

Into a beauty that the past must share,

Into the loveliness that cloaks a dream.

Do you not see them? How the bow-wave leaps,

And how the shadows paint their crowding sails,

Till westward, there, the gold sun finds the sea

And over all a fiery glory trails:

Now night’s long fingers, weaving shadows dark,

Touch, with their mystic patterns, all the sea,

But still there is a hint of ghostly yards

That marks the glory of Thermopylae.

See Torrens speeding westward, ‘fore the wind?

And watch that Clyde-built clipper! See her fly?

With all the stars of Heaven looking down

In pride, that such ships live beneath their sky.

D’you see them anchored there in Falmouth Bay?

Such dainty skysail-yarders home from sea,

Deep laden with the spices of the east,

With rarest silks, or wool, or rice, or tea.

Proud ships! At sea you laid your bones to rest,

While white winged sisters, harbour’s, like as not

Are left to eat their hearts out … and to rot.

You passers by …. lament you not their fate?

For these are England: they have made it great.

[The Dog Watch, Michaelmas 1938]

S. V. Cutty Sark

By Cadet D. F. Cruickshank

Reminders of fast dying age,

She rides the water yet,

A ship that sailed through calm and storm,

What hazards she has met!

She saw the ice from Southern Pole,

The dreaded Horn she cleared,

She ran her stormy Easting down,

And homeward courses steered.

She carried tea from China,

Wool from the Antipodes,

Flying the British Merchant Flag

She crossed the hungry seas.

When she was sold t’ Portugal

As a barquentine she sailed;

She disappeared from British eyes,

But few her loss bewailed.

Brought back to England by a man

Who knew of the work she’d done,

She lies in London River now,

And rests from the fight she’s won.

We are watching the end of the square-rigged ships

And the men they used to rear;

They served us well, they served us long,

Why must they disappear?

[The Dog Watch, Easter 1943]

Captain’s All

A contribution from the Cutty Sark Club of Winnipeg

There may remain a few around the coast,

Old battered shellbacks waiting to embark

Upon their voyage ‘cross the Styx who’ll boast

I sailed with Woodgett in the Cutty Sark.

And they will talk of how the Witch could sail,

And may be will tell with quivering mouth,

How Woodgett dodged the icebergs in a gale,

That trip he ran his Easting so far South.

And in his mind’s eye will see again

The Old Man clinging to the weather rail,

His face upturned against the icy rain,

Scanning the set of every straining sail.

Aye, aye, he’ll say they drove them like their ships.

Hard men they were in the old clipper days,

When freight was low and sailors cheap as chips,

And Captains earned a modern sea cook’s pay.

But they were sailors and by gad, they knew

The way to handle ships in calm or gales,

And we were proud to be amongst the crew

That brought the first wool for the London sales.

Ah, they were men with hearts for any fate,

And when for them Death struck the Warning Bell,

Perchance the Look-out wailed at Heaven’s gate,

‘‘Your lights are burning bright’’ and ‘‘All is well.’’

[The Dog Watch, Summer 1946]