Poem about the Filey Flither Girls

FILEY BRIDGE : THE LITTLE BAIT GATHERER : Bait gatherers have always warned people of the incoming tide. They through experience know the speed which a tide can come in. I myself, was warned by a bait gatherer in modern times whilst I was busy taking photos along the Filey coast. The tide comes in with such speed that people can be trapped on rocks. Even bait gatherers were caught and drowned.

On Filey Bridge I sat alone,
Upon a summer's day,
Till on that long dark bridge of stone
The light of evening lay.

And there was silence all around,
But for the sea bird's cry,
And waves that told, with warning sound,
The flowing tide was nigh.

They struck and struck, with solemn shock,
Each louder than the last,
As on the lonely bridge of rock
The sea was rising fast.

Even so, with life's advancing years.
Returning birth-days come, Telling to man's unwilling ears,
That this is not his home.

The waves were breaking all in foam,
In the dark northern bay
The south, between me and my home,
Smooth as the mirror lay.

And sunset hues were gleaming bright,
Over the rising sea,
So days of age in heavenly light,
May sweet and placid be.

A little lass in wild attire,
In russet cloak and hood,
Came onward softly creeping higher,
Till by my side she stood.

And then she said, "It's time to go,
The tide will soon be here,"
Homeward we wend our pathway slow,
The sea still flowing near.

She had a basket on her arm,
To gather bait she went,
A little child she feared no harm,
There by her father sent.

Yet "once," she said, "too long I staid.
And high the waters grew,"
"What then "O! I was not afraid,
I thought my father knew.

"I thought my father saw me there,
Would send a boat from shore,
But it grew dark, I did not dare
To stay there any more.

"Look at that cliff; I often knew
Rabbits run up on high,
And sheep were climbing on it too,
And so I thought might I."

"Were you not frightened there to pass,
So steep a way to find ?"
"Oh no," replied the little lass,
"1 never looked behind."

And such. I thought, should Christians be,
In danger not afraid,
Trusting their Father's eye to see,
Their Father's hand to aid.

And when he bids them climb the hill,
That leads them to their home,
Then let them say, obedient still,
"Father, to thee I come."

Nor look behind on evil pact,
But onward, onward, gaze;
And not a glance be downward cast
O'er earth's dark dreary ways.

There is a Rock that safety gives,
To all that seek it's aide,
The Lord of life, to all that lives,
Saviour, and Friend, and Guide.

O seek him then when storms arise.
And pathless wilds affright.
When evening darkens in the skies,
He is the Way, the Light.

Supplement to the Courant Published by John L. Boswell, 1850

OTHER ARTICLES
• The Filey Flither girls - truth or fiction
• World war one outbreak. The war effort in Scarborough
• Thomas Crimlisk - First of the Crimlisks
• The Womens work in the Filey fishing industry
• Coastal erosion in the 19th Century around the North Bay and Scarborough Castle area
• The U-Boat campaign in the First World War
• Haddock Legend, And Herring Fishery in Filey
• Filey and its early fishing industry
• The national RNLI and the Scarborough lifeboat of 1861.
• Caught on the Filey Cliffs
• Robin Hood's Bay - The Storm family website
• A great storm off Filey Bridge and a famous rescue in 1799
• Filey and the gales of 1860,1867,1869 AND 1880
• Sea shanties and the filey Fishermen's choir
• Charles Dickens account of Filey and Scarborough graveyards
• The Filey Flither girls - Arthur Munby
• Harwood Brierleys description of Scarborough harbour at the opening of the 20th century
• The early years of the Scarborough Lifeboat
• Tragedies in the Jenkinson fishing family in Filey

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