October 23, 2014

Dear Sir,

Not to be confused with the Maria Celeste, which ran aground with a bottle of old perfume off Bermuda in the 1870s, the vessel of almost the same name, the Mary Celeste, was found drifting off Santa Maria island in the Azores in December 1872 without any crew. It was hailed as the classic ghost ship. I grew up with the story, which came from my grandmother as it took place before she was born, and it resurfaced recently and following some research I produced this painting from my imagination, and a poem to accompany it.

I am sending it to you because I would like to share it as I think it’s special. It might have gone unnoticed at the recent Marine Art Exhibition at Masterworks owing to the disruption caused by TS Fay and Hurricane Gonzalo.

I started getting inspiration for the poem several weeks ago and it slowly took shape to accompany the painting.

It is wonderful to interlink simultaneously the two creative forms of painting and poetry, and add to that the piano.

DIANA HIGGINBOTHAM

The Mary Celeste

At the rising of the sun

when sea and sky became as one

There drifted like a ghostly cloud

a ship once tall and proud

Now becalmed before the storm,

that pink harbinger at dawn

No one there to wonder why,

the rainbow colours in the sky.

Some of her sails were set,

and so was the table too

but some of her sails were tattered and torn,

No sign was there of the crew.

No voice from the crow’s nest to call land ahoy

no hands on deck or below

no able bodies in the rig,

or cries of ‘heave-ho’.

As the tall ship gently rocked,

there softly rang the bell

as though to call the dead to prayer,

with a faint and sombre knell,

As though to say ‘I have a tale to tell’ perhaps it said

‘Everybody but the dead this scene of mortal danger fled,

nobody, nobody left alive

in still pink calm the terror lies

A broken line behind she trailed,

for she had torn away

and left them to their watery grave and on her merry way had sailed,

There were no lives to save.

O stricken ship, unlucky ship in irons her arms were tied

the sails she wore, the name she bore Fate put her to the test

Across her bows were written two words — Mary Celeste.