Stanley McShane’s Sea-Worthy Story Epic Poem – Blarney Stone Sailer’s Tale

My sister, apparently still going through some belongings our mother left behind, found a sea-worthy story poem written by Stanley McShane, our grandfather.

Quite lengthy, he divided it into five sections he called “Yarns.” While most of his books were written in the early 20s, this was penned a few years before his death some seventy years ago. The epic poem (an epic or long poem typically details extraordinary feats and adventures.) is the equivalent of a short story. I’ve chosen Yarn Four to publish here:

Smiling Pat’s Adventures

Introduction

Pat he sat on the dock one day

and heaved a gentle sigh.

I smiled at him; he smiled at me,

a twinkle in his eye.

“Oh tell me, jolly tar,” said I,

“of things that you have seen

Upon the mighty ocean blue, that

sometimes seem so green.”

He grinned at me; I grinned at him,

as he winked his weathered eye.

He shook a reef from off his tongue,

then yelled: “Yarn One, Ahoy!”

Yarn Four

The Bonny Belle

“’Twas on the Bonny Bell you see,”
again went on the tar*.
“She had no belles aboard of her;
she had no extra spar.
She took aboard her in her hold
one million tons of YEAST.
We broached the cargo of that ship
and had a jolly feast!
A feast it was, believe me, friend,
for we were rising high;
That ship became as light as air
and rose into the sky.
It rose so high that we began
to see things on old Mars,
We saw great men, all giants bold,
a juggling with the stars.
The stars began to shoot this way
and that, and then the other;
And then it was I longed to see
my poor old widowed mother.

We wandered through the Milky Way
and met a Movie Star.
She wondered why our yeastly ship
had traveled up so far.
“Twas then that I began to sense
some future kind of trouble;
for with a marling spike she pricked
our yeastly ocean bubble.
Then back to earth we fell again
and landed on the sea.
A passing steamer towed us in,
a saddened crew were we,
But shiver my old timber’s now,
I quite enjoyed that trip,
Aboard the good ship, Bonny Belle;
aboard that yeastly ship.
So here am I. Look through this glass,
for, as sure as I’m alive,
Unless I weary you, my friend,
you’ll like Yarn number Five.”

As I’ve noted before, he professed to be a “sailor, prospector, miner, and cowpoke,” and largely wrote about his sea-going years on various ships of the late nineteenth century from barques to whalers.

 

 

I created book trailers for two of McShane’s books, Cocos Island Treasure and Lucky Joe without knowing what I was doing, but they convey somewhat a taste of his sailing years. The theme behind Cocos Island Treasure is from Marc Gunn’s album, “Happy Songs of Death” called “Won’t You Come With Me.” I’ve mentioned Marc Gunn before—love his happy podcasts full of Irish tunes.

©2023 V Williams

* Tar, a slang term for a Sailor, has been in use since at least 1676.