They Built Ships

Nigh the mouldering staithe Where the lads came to bathe, And the tidal river as it passes Licks with salty lips The wiry grasses Where the cattle graze, There, in the old days, They built ships . . . Staunch little ships they built here, Craft with coastwise rigs, Schooners, ketches, brigs, That sailed many a year With their homely freights - Cornish clay, granite, Bethesda slates - To and fro between Fowey and Falmouth, Runcorn and Wales, Dipping both rails under in the Channel gales, Beating up to wind'ard with the sunlight on their sails . . . There were bustle and noise then, Voices of boys and men, And the clean shipyard smells Of sawdust, paint and tar; You could hear from far Late and soon The anvil's clang, And the caulkers' mallets as they rang All in time and tune, Like a peal of bells . . . But now it's ended and done; Thirty years a gone The last ship left the ways, With her bunting flying, And the gulls crying All around her, and the folks cheering from the riverside To see her take her tide . . . And by the rotting staithe, Where the lads came to bathe, No stir of life is seen And over the old slips Where they used to build ships The grass grows green . . .