Wreck of the Emelie

As the saying goes... now for something completely different -- for Clare anyway!

The land it is a dangerous strand

So is the briny Sea
When man has lost his self command
How wretched he must be
Our Ship it was the ‘Emmelie’
To Cardiff she was bound
But foundered in a dangerous sea
With dangers all around

The sky was all a ink black rock
The wild fire seaming through
The Emelie recieved the shock
All in that boisterous Sea
Like seething pots the billows boiled
& frothed that briny Sea
The sailors on the masts were coiled
When wrecked the Emelie

The night came on in black & brown
& where that chauldron boiled red hot
The foundering Emelie went down
As sudden as a shot
Some clung to spars to hencoops some
Twas but a minutes space
Loud oer them boiling billows boom
& left no resting place

Above them gloomed the angry sky
& through the pitch black rock
Of clouds the splintered lightnings flye
None could resist the shock
Down & in a moment gone
Nine men plunged in the wave
& all the seamen lost but one
There met a watery grave

One still survived that fatal wreck
By billows washed ashore
Though all had hopes that stood on deck
That now can feel no more
He through the boiling waves did beat
All in that boiling sea
& on the beach upon his feet
Viewed the shipwrecked Emelie

The Later Poems of John Clare

ed. Eric Robinson and Geoffrey Summerfield

 (Manchester University Press, 1964)