L Stockdale - Sligo Poets

     Sligo Nationalist 8 May 1915
                  Sea Breezes.

("During the past few months the sea has claimed its share of the war’s victims.") Daily Paper.

The breeze was full o’ whispers, as it swept across the sea.
There was no one on the sea shore—only him and me.
Him morose and silent, me laughin’ loud an’ gay,
As if no hearts were breakin’, an’ no one goin’ away.
                 The low breeze,
                 The soft breeze,
         Saying all we could not say.

The song birds hushed their voices, the breeze sat down to rest,
An’ still we paced the sea shore, ’till the sun died in the west,
’Till the moon was showin’ thro’ the star-spangled sky,
Showin’ us the time had come—the time to say good-bye.
                 An old moon,
                 A wise moon.
         The moon kept guard on high.

At morn the breeze came whisperin’ thro’ the crowd upon the quay.
But none could read the message there—only him and me.
Him aboard the big ship—me upon the shore,
By sun rise or moon rise we’ll roam the beach no more!!
                  The low breeze,
                  The soft breeze,
         Lost in the battle’s roar.

                                                          LOUIE STOCKDALE.
-Manorhamilton

Louie (Louisa) Stockdale was widely published in local newspapers in the north-west, especially in the Impartial Reporter (Enniskillen).

Her poems and stories appeared regularly from 1905. She had an occasional poem published in Sligo newspapers, in the Sligo Times in 1910, 1911 and 1912 and in the Sligo Independent in 1913. She also has a poem published in the Sunday Independent on 7 April 1912.

This poem, Sea Breezes, was also published in the Impartial Reporter (Enniskillen) on 6 May 1915 where it is creditied with having first appeared in the Irish Independent.

Her previous publications in Sligo were in unionist newspapers and it is not clear if she submitted this poem to the obviously nationalist Sligo Nationalist or if they copied it from the Irish Independent. Poems of hers had been published in nationalist newspapers in Ulster.

It is a carefully constructed, sensitive poem with her usual effective use of repetition, full of the sadness of parting with the minimum of sentimentality. It avoids any mention of the war, apart from the newspaper quote, until the very last line - Lost in the battle’s roar.

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