Poetry
Between Two Tides
R. D. FitzGerald · 1952
Synopsis
The poem follows Will Mariner, a young sailor on the British privateer Port au Prince, which Tongans attack and burn in 1806 off Lifuka, in the Ha'apai archipelago. According to the 1817 account, twenty-two of the twenty-six crew are killed; the young man is spared, and the chief Finau Ulukalala takes him under his protection. Nicknamed the iron axe, he lives four years in the islands, mostly on Vava'u. The narrative, in five parts, follows this stay according to the testimony that Mariner gave to John Martin.
Context
The poem is drawn from the account that John Martin published in 1817 from Mariner's recollections, and its author worked on it at intervals over years. It appeared in 1952 in Sydney from Halstead Press, in seventy-nine pages illustrated by Norman Lindsay, and received the Grace Leven Poetry Prize the same year, the first of the three its author won. The events took place in November 1806, and Mariner did not return to England until 1810.
Who it is for
A slim volume in English, a verse narrative in five parts that moves quickly; no French translation.
Prizes and reception
For the Sydney Morning Herald, a narrative in verse likely to please readers of Stevenson and of Masefield's Dauber.