A Poem by Cicely Fox Smith
“Christmas,” said Bill, “on Christmas cards, it’s winders all aglow,
An’ lots o’ stuff to eat an’ drink an’ a good three feet o’ snow,
An’ a bunch o’ bouncin’ girls to kiss under the mistletoe.
Holly an’ robin redbreasts too, as rosy as can be,
An’ waits an’ chimes an’ all such gear as you never get at sea,
But it’s different things as Christmas means to a ramblin’ bloke like me.
The first I ever ‘ad at sea I was ‘ardly more ‘n a nipper,
An’ I’d took an’ signed, bein’ young an’ green, in a dandy Down-east clipper
With a bullnecked beast of a bucko mate an’ a rare tough nut of a skipper.
An’ we dined ‘andsome, so we did, off biscuits an’ salt ‘orse,
An’ finished up with scraper duff an’ sand-an’-canvas sorce,
An’ them as growled got seaboot soup by way of an extry course.
I’ve ‘ad my Christmas ‘ere an’ there, I’ve ‘ad it up an’ down,
I’ve ‘ad it sober on the seas an’ drunk in sailor-town,
I’ve ‘ad it where the folks are black an’ where the folks are brown,
And under many a tropic sky an’ many a foreign star,
In Perim, Portland, Pernambuck, Malacca, Malabar,
Where the rum bird-‘eaded totem poles and the gilded Buddhas are.
I’ve ‘ad it froze in Baltic cold an’ burned in Red Sea ‘eat,
I’ve ‘ad it in a Channel fog as busy as a street,
An’ once I ‘ad it off the ‘Orn, an’ that was sure a treat.
I was in the clipper Sebright then — a big ship, ‘eavy sparred,
With every sort o’ flyin’ kite an’ a seventy foot mainyard,
An’ ‘andlin’ ‘er in a gale of wind, I tell you, it was ‘ard!
We come on deck for the middle watch, an’ save us, ‘ow it blew!
A night like the devil’s ridin’boots, that never a star shone through,
An’ the seas they kep’ on poopin’ ‘er till we ‘ad to ‘eave ‘er to.
We snugged ‘er down, we ‘ove ‘er to, an’ there all night lay she,
With one mainyard arm pointin’ to ‘eaven an’ one to the deeps o’ the sea,
Dippin’ ‘er spars at every roll in the thunderin’ foam alee.
Till the wind an’ sea went down a bit an’ the dawn come cold an’ grey,
An’ we laid aloft an’ loosed the sails an’ squared the ship away,
An’ a chap beside me on the yard says, ‘Bill, it’s Christmas Day!'”
Cicely Fox Smith
Cicely Fox Smith (1882 to 1954) was an English poet, novelist, and writer best known for her vivid and authentic verse celebrating the age of sail, merchant seamen, and life at sea.
Born in Lymm, Cheshire, on the 1st of February 1882, into a middle-class family, she was educated at Manchester High School for Girls. Although she never went to sea herself, from childhood she was fascinated by ships and the sea, largely through her brother Philip, who became a merchant navy officer. Living close to the Manchester Ship Canal and later spending extended periods in Canada (1912 to 1913 and again during the 1920s to 30s), she absorbed the language, songs, and stories of sailors in ports and waterfront boarding houses.
During the First World War she worked in shipyards and munitions factories, experiences that deepened her understanding of maritime life. From 1912 onward she published dozens of volumes of poetry, including Songs of Greater Britain, Sea Songs and Ballads, Sailor Town, and Anchor Lane, as well as nautical novels and short-story collections such as The Ship Aground and Tales of the Clipper Ships.
Her work appeared regularly in periodicals, magazines and newspapers including Blue Peter, Canada Monthly, Country Life, Cunard Magazine, The Daily Chronicle, Pall Mall Gazette, The Daily Mail, The London Mercury, The Nautical Magazine, The Spectator, The Times Literary Supplement, Westminster Gazette, White Star Magazine, and Punch magazine.
Fox Smith’s poetry is notable for its technical accuracy, its use of sailors’ own dialects and idioms, and its deep affection for the vanishing world of square-rigged sailing ships. She was admired by figures such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the maritime writer Alan Villiers, and her verses were often recited or sung aboard ship well into the mid-20th century.
After many years living in British Columbia and later in Sussex, she returned to Cheshire in the 1940s. She never married and spent her last years in quiet retirement at Bowdon, where she died on the 8th of April 1954. Though largely forgotten for several decades, her work has enjoyed a strong revival among maritime enthusiasts and folk musicians since the 1980s, with many of her poems set to music and recorded, though sadly not this one yet.
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(Nov 2025)
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