Bantry Bay Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCD EFEGHD D IJIKLALA| On the eighteenth of October we lay in Bantry Bay | A |
| All ready to set sail with a fresh and steady gale | B |
| A fortnight and nine days we in the harbour lay | A |
| And no breeze ever reached us or strained a single sail | B |
| Three ships of war had we and the great guns loaded all | C |
| But our ships were dead and beaten that had never feared a foe | D |
| The winds becalmed around us cared for no cannon ball | C |
| They locked us in the harbour and would not let us go | D |
| - | |
| On the nineteenth of October by eleven of the clock | E |
| The sky turned black as midnight and a sudden storm came on | F |
| Awful and sudden and the cables felt the shock | E |
| Our anchors they all broke away and every sheet was gone | G |
| The guns fired off amid the strife but little hope had we | H |
| The billows broke above the ship and left us all below | D |
| 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 | D |
| - | |
| She foundered on a rock while we clambered up the shrouds | I |
| And staggered like a mountain drunk wedged in the waves almost | J |
| The red hot boiling billows foamed in the stooping clouds | I |
| And in that fatal tempest the whole ship's crew were lost | K |
| Have pity for poor mariners ye landsmen in a storm | L |
| O think what they endure at sea while safe at home you stay | A |
| All ye that sleep on beds at night in houses dry and warm | L |
| O think upon the whole ship's crew all lost at Bantry Bay | A |
John Clare
(1)
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