Bantry Bay Poem by John Clare

Bantry Bay

Rating: 2.8


On the eighteenth of October we lay in Bantry Bay,
All ready to set sail, with a fresh and steady gale:
A fortnight and nine days we in the harbour lay,
And no breeze ever reached us or strained a single sail.
Three ships of war had we, and the great guns loaded all;
But our ships were dead and beaten that had never feared a foe.
The winds becalmed around us cared for no cannon ball;
They locked us in the harbour and would not let us go.

On the nineteenth of October, by eleven of the clock,
The sky turned black as midnight and a sudden storm came on--
Awful and sudden--and the cables felt the shock;
Our anchors they all broke away and every sheet was gone.
The guns fired off amid the strife, but little hope had we;
The billows broke above the ship and left us all below.
The crew with one consent cried 'Bear further out to sea,'
But the waves obeyed no sailor's call, and we knew not where to go.

She foundered on a rock, while we clambered up the shrouds,
And staggered like a mountain drunk, wedged in the waves almost.
The red hot boiling billows foamed in the stooping clouds,
And in that fatal tempest the whole ship's crew were lost.
Have pity for poor mariners, ye landsmen, in a storm.
O think what they endure at sea while safe at home you stay.
All ye that sleep on beds at night in houses dry and warm,
O think upon the whole ship's crew, all lost at Bantry Bay.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Sylvia Frances Chan 20 May 2022

A beautiful poem about the lost of a whole ship's crew at Bantry Bay. Greatest tragedy.5 Stars

0 0 Reply
Chinedu Dike 20 May 2022

A tragic story of lose told with clarity of thought and mind.

0 0 Reply
Ratnakar Mandlik 11 May 2017

An awesome narrative of the catastrophe faced by the crew of the war ship.

0 0 Reply
Upendra Upm 11 May 2017

And staggered like a mountain drunk, he is describing the ship in the storm.Beautiful and meticulous description. From a genius mind. How to describe is perhaps culturally determined.We, here in India , perhaps have never called a swinging ship as a drunk mountain.

0 0 Reply
READ THIS POEM IN OTHER LANGUAGES
John Clare

John Clare

Northamptonshire / England
Close
Error Success