Poetry Corner - The Inchcape Rock

One I remember from school! Oh, and by the way 'Aberbrothok' = Arbroath, Scotland

No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,

The ship was still as she could be,

Her sails from heaven received no motion,

Her keel was steady in the ocean.

Without either sign or sound of their shock

The waves flow’d over the Inchcape Rock;

So little they rose, so little they fell,

They did not move the Inchcape Bell.

The Abbot of Aberbrothok

Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock;

On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,

And over the waves its warning rung.

When the Rock was hid by the surge’s swell,

The mariners heard the warning bell;

And then they knew the perilous Rock,

And blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok.

The Sun in heaven was shining gay,

All things were joyful on that day;

The sea-birds scream’d as they wheel’d round,

And there was joyaunce in their sound.

The buoy of the Inchcape Bell was seen

A darker speck on the ocean green;

Sir Ralph the Rover walk’d his deck,

And he fix’d his eye on the darker speck.

He felt the cheering power of spring,

It made his whistle, it made him sing;

His heart was mirthful to excess,

But the Rover’s mirth was wickedness.

His eye was on the Inchcape float;

Quoth he, ‘My men, put out the boat,

And row me to the Inchcape Rock,

And I’ll plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok.’

The boat is lower’d, the boatmen row,

And to the Inchcape Rock they go;

Sir Ralph bent over from the boat,

And he cut the Bell from the Inchcape float.

Down sunk the Bell with a gurgling sound,

The bubbles rose and burst around;

Quoth Sir Ralph, ‘The next who comes to the Rock

Won't bless the Abbot of Aberbrothok.'

Sir Ralph the Rover sail’d away,

He scour’d the seas for many a day;

And now grown rich with plunder’d store,

He steers his course for Scotland’s shore.

So thick a haze o’erspreads the sky

They cannot see the Sun on high;

The wind hath blown a gale all day,

At evening it hath died away.

On the deck the Rover takes his stand,

So dark it is they see no land.

Quoth Sir Ralph, ‘It will be lighter soon,

For there is the dawn of the rising Moon.’

‘Canst hear,’ said one, ‘the breakers roar?

For methinks we should be near the shore.’

‘Now where we are I cannot tell,

But I wish I could hear the Inchcape Bell.’

They hear no sound, the swell is strong;

Though the wind hath fallen they drift along,

Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock,―

‘Oh Christ! It is the Inchcape Rock!’

Sit Ralph the Rover tore his hair;

He curst himself in his despair;

The waves rush in on every side,

The ship is sinking beneath the tide.

But even in his dying fear

One dreadful sound could the Rover hear,

A sound as if with the Inchcape Bell,

The Devil below was ringing his knell.

Robert Southey 1802

Let it (not) snow

OK, it's a boring topic. The TV is full of it now some snow has landed on London and the South and is no longer a regional curiousity suffered by those of us living north of Watford.

But I am freaking sick of it! Can we have an early Spring please? Pretty please!

Helping Racing Greyhounds

If you are a UK resident or citizen please consider signing this petition to help racing greyhounds.

In principle there is nothing wrong with the sport of greyhound racing. Unfortunately, utterly selfish tossers seem to be disproportionately represented among greyhound owners and these people bring the sport and themselves into disrepute.

If you want an example of what is wrong check out this article on the Tia Greyhound Lurcher and Rescue Site.

By the way if you are looking for a good cause in which to invest your spare Christmas cash, you could do a lot worse than donate to Tia.

Hostage to Fortune Time

I am making good progress with the Richard III novel; in fact I think the hard work is done and all I need to finish it is write the other half and edit the thing. This latter task, because of the fragmented method of working I'm experimenting with, may take some time.

Anyroad, as we say in Lancashire, I reckon the manuscript will be finished in 2010, and that is the target I'm setting myself. I'm keeping the exact target month to myself.

Next project up is likely to be my long-projected work on Richard II and Anne of Bohemia, which has the working title of This New Spring of Time. I have started research on this - you could say I started about 35 years ago - and my current bedside reading is The Westminster Chronicle. I did make a start of the writing a bit back, but that proved abortive.

Bookies are offering very short prices on guest appearances by Constance of York and her family, while Philippa Mohun will almost certainly return by public demand.

In case anyone is wondering

what I am doing these days, given the long gap between posts...

It's OK, I'm not ill or anything, there is no domestic crisis, and the house hasn't fallen down. I'm writing, albeit not as productively as I should be, and trying to avoid temptation to start even more stories. (I don't lack for ideas, just the persistence to turn them into MSS.)

I have just submitted an article about Constance of York which will be published in The Katherine Wheel, the journal of the Katherine Swynford Society. While I was at it I gave them a second one about the fate of Richard II.

I'm also awaiting more feed-back in relation to The Arrivall, the short story that appeared in the Ricardian Bulletin. I know from the letters published in the same issue that some members are horrified by the idea of historical fiction polluting the sacred pages of their journal, so it may not all be sweetness and light! You know, it's a funny thing. I'm a member of various societies and often find some of the contributions in the publications (or even whole publications) pretty uninteresting. However I've never been moved to complain, as I appreciate that the said societies are not just run for me, but for their membership as a whole. Ah well, I suppose it wouldn't do for us all to be the same!

Do go and have a look...

I urge you to visit Alianore's Edward II Blog as there is an exceptionally brilliant post on there about characters mistreated by fiction. An excellent read, as that particular blog always is.

All Quiet on The Blogging Front

You may have noticed it has gone very quiet around here. That is because whatever entity it is that drains my energy has been draining it again, leaving me with very little focus. The little spare energy I have has been committed to the writing, on which slow progress is being made. T'other day I found that I'd put one piece of action in the wrong season, so I need to change things around a bit! I'm also scrabbling round for the chronology of the Fitzhugh rebellion, in which young Francis Lovel was involved.

An interesting side effect of all this is that I have I have thought of even more ideas for new books. They spring into my head practically every day, and if there was a market for such ideas I'd be well off. Unfortunately there isn't, and really having the idea is the easy bit. It's the writing that's hard.