Robert Stephen Hawker
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Hawker of Morwenstowe by H. J. Massingham
Rev. H. Hugh Breton
William Maskell (1814-1890)
Henry Sewell Stokes
Henry Sewell Stokes (1808-1895). From a painting by Edward A. Fellowes Prynne, 1891. The following biography comes from West Country Poets: Their Lives and Their Works. Being an account of about four hundred verse writers of Devon and Cornwall, with poems and extracts. Edited by W. H. Kearley Wright. London: Elliot Stock, 1896. * * * * * The subject of the present notice (the late Henry Sewell Stokes), formerly of Truro, and late of Bodmin, who for twenty-five years was Clerk of the Peace for Cornwall, and afterwards clerk of the Cornwall County Council, was born at Gibraltar, June 16, 1808, where his father practised as proctor and notary. That gentleman was a native of Dartmouth, and educated at the Grammar School there, when the father of the late John Russell, of Tor Down, was its headmaster. Mr. H. S. Stokes at the age of seven was brought to England, and placed at St. Saviour’s Grammar School, Southwark, and subsequently at the school of Dr. Giles at Chatham, where he had for a school-fellow the late Charles Dickens. In 1823 he returned to Gibraltar, and studied English and Foreign mercantile law for three years, and the French, Spanish and…
Books
A Selected Bibliography
‘The Vicar’s Wife’ by Lois I. Hartman
The Vicar’s Wife was published in 2000 by Minerva Press and is based on the story of Hawker’s first wife, Charlotte I’ans. The seller advertised it as a novel, the back cover describes it as a factual account, and on the page ‘About the Author’ it’s referred to as a biography. The author herself writes in a Preface that ‘Some names are real; others are not. Some events and places have been altered; others stand as they were.’ Lois Hartman, ‘a distant relative of Charlotte I’ans Hawker’ divides her time between her beach home and her residence in Pasadena, California. Her publisher, Minerva Press, was a vanity publishing company which folded after being investigated by the BBC and the Mirror newspaper. These facts don’t inspire confidence but I’m going to press ahead with my reading and write up a synopsis as I go. Each of the forty-two chapters is introduced by a quotation from the works of Robert Stephen Hawker. Assembling the quotes obviously required some patient research, and, as someone whose only attempt at a novel expired at around 5000 words and whose poems are generally completed in less than twenty-eight lines, I’m always impressed by the sheer hard…
Hawker of Morwenstow: an essay by J. Ashcroft Noble
The Sonnet in England and Other Essays. John Lane, 1896. * * * * * I looked forward to owning this book – assuming from the title that it was an assessment of Hawker’s writings – and since it doesn’t appear to be available elsewhere online I was initially planning to type up the complete text. It turns out that a large part of the essay is a lazy re-hash of the Sabine Baring-Gould biography, which, despite its many faults, sparkles with wit and humanity by comparison. I can’t bear to wade through all of it and anyway it’s far too long to fit here, so I’ve settled for a couple of representative extracts. * * * * * ‘Had this page been printed a quarter of a century ago and been glanced at curiously by, say, a thousand people, it is safe to conjecture that 999 of them would certainly have asked ‘Who was Hawker?’ and unless they were West countrymen might possibly have added the further question, ‘Where is Morwenstow?’ During his life-time Robert Stephen Hawker might almost have been classed among the obscure: during the eighteen years which have elapsed since his death, the little group of…
Poems
Lines on the Crew of the Caledonia by John Adams
Who were shipwrecked on the Coast of Morwenstow in the night-storm of September 8th 1842 They looked in dismay to the shore, As they shot through the blackness of night; And before them, on cliffs that re-echoed the roar, The billows dashed foaming and white: They quailed as they saw that Death’s terrors were there And clung to the mast with the grasp of despair. They were hurled by the storm to their graves, As though storming the door of that home; They were dragged by waves harnessed like horse to waves, Whose manes were white banners of foam; Whilst voices of strife to a wild dirge were strung, And loud the death-wail of the mariners rung. But mourn not the moments of pain! Those terrors which hung on a breath! For the tempest-worn rocks and the billowy main Grew as smooth as a pillow in death; And the surges that swept them to die on that shore, Were chariots that bore them to rest evermore!* *One only of the crew of nine men escaped death. He was thrown on a ledge of rock, and scrambled up a precipice so steep and rugged that no human being would have…
Lines to the Rev. R. S. Hawker Vicar of Morwinstow by David Arrott
Parson Hawker’s Farewell by Patricia Beer
Let no one wear black at my funeral. I have not let blackness be the friend To me it could have been. The black storm Crawling with demons clambered up the sky Each day. My eyes shrank. I turned away And the prince demon tore the roof off my house. I have passed through purple and grey to white. I am as white now as the ship’s figurehead The sea spat out on the shore one day. All its paint licked off, it had a body Still, better without gaudiness, a face Hinting at what was behind the colours. I have been compassionate at the lych-gate. I have been made hateful by drowned sailors Brought to me every one, some in good clothes Others piecemeal out of the murk of rock pools Where the biting and shaking sea at last left them. Limbs, dispossessed hearts, all begging for burial. Those storms. ‘A corpse ashore, sir.’ The words Make me cringe even as the gap narrows Between me and the men I every day sent To resurrection. All ended with me, and I Have been alone. Even my loving wife cannot Ward off the blown leaves that presage storm. My fellow…
To R. S. H. by C. E. Byles
Resurges? by C. E Byles
(Written in the Hut at Morwenstow) O Spirit, where art thou fled Thro’ the deeps of air and sea? Wilt thou not return from the dead To be one mortal hour with me? I gaze from thy crag-hewn seat O’er the spreading, limitless main, And the deep foam-thunders beat At their rocky bars in vain. The land still wars with the deep, And the storm sweeps valley and hill: But the dead rise not yet from their sleep, And the stormy Spirit is still. Will the dead rise up from the past When the dark gates open to me? Shall I greet the, O Spirit at last On the verge of that vaster sea? * * * * * From The Life and Letters of R. S. Hawker, edited by C. E. Byles, page 655. Charles Edward Byles (1873 – ?) married Hawker’s second daughter, Rosalind. In addition to Life and Letters he also edited Stones Broken From the Rocks: Extracts From the Manuscript Notebooks of R. S. Hawker and new editions of Cornish Ballads u0026#038; Other Poems and Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall. A journalist and poet he worked as sub-editor on The Illustrated London News and…
Morwenstow by Charles Causley
Where do you come from, sea, To the sharp Cornish shore, Leaping up to the raven’s crag? From Labrador. Do you grow tired sea? Are you weary ever When the storms burst over your head? Never. Are you hard as a diamond, sea, As iron, as oak? Are you stronger than flint or steel? And the lightning stroke. Ten thousand years and more, sea, You have gobbled your fill, Swallowing stone and slate! I am hungry still. When will you rest, sea? When moon and sun Ride only fields of salt water And the land is gone. © Charles Causley, Collected Poems 1951-2000. Macmillan, 2000. Reprinted by permission.
Morwenstow by Francis Coutts
Written for the occasion of the dedication of a memorial window to the Rev. R.S. Hawker, unveiled today. September 8th, 1904. Nature bestows on every place A gloom, a glory, or a grace; But yet strange power belongs to Man The hill and vale to bless or ban. Here, by this black, forbidding coast, Dwelt one who heard the heavenly host Singing in every wind that blows, In wave that breaks or stream that flows, And surely deemed that love divine, Whose tendrils all his church entwine, Is not too distant to be won By Nature’s humblest orison. Wherefore amid these moors and steeps His spirit ever laughs and weeps, Weeps with the storm or laughs with glee For rhythmic laughter of the sea: For who beside Morwenna’s well The “former gladness” tries to tell, Or reads in Tidna-Combe’s “mild” stream The pathos of the poet’s dream, – Who lingers by St. Nectan’s Kieve, Watching the “foamy waters” leave Their mossy cave, to seek for rest In Severn Sea’s unslumbering breast, – Who strays where rushy Tamar spills Her new-born flood in slender rills, Unguessing in her modest source The “goodly channel” of her course, – Who pauses reverently to…
Hawker of Morwenstow by Lionel Johnson
On the Death of a Poet Priest by F. G. Lee
I Not where th’ Atlantic sighs upon the shore Of the most sacred station of a saint;- Not where uprises Ocean’s ceaseless plaint Or swells its fury to tempestuous roar; Not near God’s acre, which he loved so well, Where sunbeams creep athwart Morwenna’s shrine, Where Sacrament is shed, and signs divine Speak of a time when seas shall no more swell; But near the confines of his boyhood’s home, (Now work is done and stormy skies grow black, Changes too rude; more dangerous the track;) Came the short summons of his Master, “Come, O faithful servant blest.” That Garden grows Heaven-sunned the Mystic Sharon’s blood-red Rose. II So, on the day when Blessed Mary slept, But lived, by grace encircling Her to stand In golden vesture, Queen at God’s Right Hand, Her client likewise closed his eyes. Friends wept, Because of separation round his bed; Then joyed, with deepening thankfulness, that he Should pass the waves of Earth’s sore-troubled sea With pleading mother’s smile above him shed. Fret not. Our Inn, the Church, hath rooms diverse: He passed from one to another here. Then on Where angel-guardians, sheltering, wait to guide God’s servants to the Valley’s other side, Scaring…
A Riddle from the Pulpit by Robert Peters
Gyp My Loving Big Black Pig by Robert Peters
The Sailors by Adelaide Ross
The Plaint of Morwenstow by Henry Sewell Stokes
That he was brave the white-haired cragsmen tell, Round all the coast from Hartland to Pentire; And shipwreck’d mariners remember well How grand he look’d when flashed the beacon-fire. As down the cliff he rush’d against the gale, Well might he seem the Angela of the Storm; While his deep voice the stranded bark would hail, His strong arm stretch to save some gasping form. When falls Tintagel’s tower, it’s solemn chime In Hawker’s rhythm will echo on the blast, And still repeat, ‘Come to thy God in time!’ And say to each, ‘Come to thy God at last!’ He heard and went: but where his dust should sleep, Tears on a vacant sepulchre are shed; And still the cry comes from Morwenna’s steep, Complaining that they bring not home the dead. The seabirds miss him on the headland’s verge, And wailing seek their guardian ‘mong these graves; And to the cavern’d shore’s Aeolian dirge Succeeds the ‘De Profundis’ of the waves. Rest where he may, this place is hallowed ground: Genius, Love, Duty, tried by crucial pain, Here in one noble human mould were found, The secrets of his soul with God remain. From The Life and Letters of…
Sonnet by Gamel Woolsey
WHEN I AM DEAD AND LAID AT LAST TO REST When I am dead and laid at last to rest, Let them not bury me in holy ground – To lie the shipwrecked sailor cast ashore – But give the corpse to fire, to flood, to air, The elements that may the flesh transform To soar with birds, to float where fishes are, To rise in smoke, shine in a leaping flame – To be in freedom lost in nothingness, Not garnered in the grave, hoarded by death. What is remembrance that we crave for it? Let me be nothing then, not face nor name; As on the seagull wings where bright seas pour, As air that quickens at the opened door: When I am dead, let me be nothing more. From The Collected Poems of Gamel Woolsey, Warren House Press, 1984. © Kenneth Hopkins and the Estate of Gamel Woolsey Gamel Woolsey and her husband Gerald Brenan spent many summers at Welcombe and her reference in this beautiful poem to ‘the shipwrecked sailor cast ashore’ is undoubtedly based on her knowledge of Hawker. Like Ronald Duncan, Woolsey and Brenan first came to Welcombe in 1937, and Duncan himself wrote…
Afterlife
Trelawny’s Pride
A lucky find on eBay. There was a bar towel available as well, but I passed on that. The brewery seem to have dropped the ‘Pride’ part of the name now – see more at the St Austell Brewery website.
Hawker’s Cottage
I don’t think words can add much to these images, but I’ll just say that the cottage comes in a nice box with a little slip of paper headed ‘Lilliput Lane Deeds’ which confirms that ownership has been transferred to you and that your model is a true and authentic original. On the reverse of your Deed, Hawker is described as ‘the famous poet, eccentric and vicar of Morwenstow who is responsible for starting the church’s tradition of harvest festivals in 1843, and who lived here for a brief moment in time’. Anyone tempted to splash out and acquire one of their own is advised to shop around – I bought mine on Amazon and lots of eBay sellers are charging double what I paid.
A Fisher of Men
Mary Wright’s book, Cornish Guernseys u0026#038; Knit-frocks (Polperro Heritage Press, 2008) provides instructions for the pattern on the front of the jersey worn by Hawker in many of his portraits. As well as including the pattern itself – she calls it ‘Slate’ – she makes a couple of references to Hawker in the main text, one of which is accompanied by the familiar photo of him standing at the door of his vicarage. The stitch pattern is a simple one to follow, although for working a flat sample I had to adapt the instructions and knit on two needles rather than the traditional circular one. Mary Wright describes the yarn used for making guernseys as ‘dark navy worsted, in four- and five-ply’, and explains that even though many people (including me) assume that it was oiled, this wasn’t the case – the weatherproof finish relies on using a yarn with a tight spinning twist worked on fairly fine needles to create a closely knitted fabric. An online search showed that although ‘Guernsey 5-ply’ was readily available, obtaining a single ball of navy was more of a problem, so I ended up buying a lighter blue than Hawker probably wore. The…
Devon Worthies
Trelawny Again
Morwenstowe – Not For Motors
Links
LITERARY PLACES – A companion to the Robert Stephen Hawker website. Focusing on the lives and work of writers in the UK. THE OLD VICARAGE, MORWENSTOW offers accommodation to guests in the house built by Robert Stephen Hawker. A self-catering cottage is also available. THE HAWKER SOCIETY – Their website site is currently under construction and welcomes enquiries. THE MORWENSTOW SOCIETY does not have a website at present but the Treasurer can be contacted by email at: oxonserve at btinternet dot com – (to avoid spam this is not an active link so you will need to type the address in the “to” box of your email, replacing ‘at’ and ‘dot’ with the appropriate symbols).
About
Celebrating the life and work of the Victorian writer Robert Stephen Hawker (1803 – 1875). * * * * * Copyright Statement: This is a non-profit making site dedicated to the life and work of Robert Stephen Hawker. If any copyright holder objects (in writing) to any of the items appearing on the site we will remove them.
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‘The Botathen Ghost’
Hawker’s most commercially successful short story
May 2, 2012
