What follows is a collection of anything canal related that has taken my fancy.
THE BARGES
I have watched the boats slip like floating dead,
Beyond the reed bed's silent slimy pool,
With rusted hulls, foul bottomed, riding deep,
For Wolverhampton and the smoking dawn,
That wraps the rooftops in a misty bed,
And every boat was manned by lusty men,
Who scanned their course with bright unsleeping eyes,
Thrusting iron strength at coal blackened tiller bars,
At the murky tunnel's yawning mouth,drooling damp,
Cold lichen, smoke, and echoes up the ramp,
Then out between the walls they softly churn,
Crisping the oily green against the stone,
Where belching chimneys give the sky its tone
But I have seen,Chugging its drowsy rythm to the day,
Bright painted image in an oil slick thrown,
A lazy boat of gay and reckless tone,
And, following its way
I watched, and wished, and saw--appear and sing,
Sun tan from a bottle,lips of fire,
Rings flashing at her ears,
The Gypsy wench that beckoned in the Spring,
Birmingham born and bred,
And full of lies about her Latin sires,
Up in Soho coal wharves round the boatmen's fires,
A painted boat, a gaudy wench:and yet,
I swear I heard above the engines beat,
The clicking of an urgent castanet,
The heels of a Flamenco in full heat.
J. William Jones.
FIDDLERS GREEN
As I walked by the cut side one evening so fair,
To view the old boats and to take the fresh air,
I heard an old boatman a singing a song,
Saying, take me away boys me time is not long.
chorus Wrap me up in tarpaulin for a blanket,
No more on the cut I'll be seen,
Just tell me old boat mates, I'm going afloat mate,
And I'll see you some time on Fiddler's green.
Now Fiddler's Green is a place I've heard tell,
Where old boatmen go if they don't go to hell,
Where the pounds are all full and the locks are all level,
And the coal jumps on board with one flick of the shovel.
Where the skies are all clear and there's never no snow
Where the cut is all dredged and the working boats go
Where you boat at your leisure, there's no work to do,
And your mate is below making tea for the crew.
Now I don't want a harp nor a halo not me,
Just give me a pair and set my soul free,
I'll play me old squeezebox as we sail along,
With the beat of me Bollinder, singing a song.
Originally an Irish Sea Fairing song by John Conolly, the words to which have been altered to suit.
