Catherine Watson bravely run
To the rescue! long as sun
Floods the Firth with gold, your name
Shall be golden as your fame;
Never boy in yonder bay
But shall feel above his play
Towering up the granite cross
Mindful of our love and loss;
Never fisherman shall ride
Homewards on the swelling tide
But shall dream beside his boat
That he sees your body float,
With those hands that stretched to save
Drifting helpless on the wave;
And when tempests cease to roar
They who gather by the shore,
That wild ocean-forest thing
Whose strong roots do clutch and cling
Round the stones, shall haply find
Branches of the weed that twined
Round your hair in Berwick Bay,
Lest the tides should steal away
All that we, who loved you dear,
Held in veneration here.
Catherine Watson! you but saw
Boys who played beneath the “Law”
Strip and run to meet the tide,
Then you heard how voices cried,
And with not a look behind,
With your loose hair on the wind
Of your speed, you raced across
Sand and shallow to our loss,
Entered boldly to the wave
That roared at you, calm and brave,
Strong to die or strong to save.
Catherine Watson! though no more
You are seen upon the shore,
Never more with brush in hand
At our fisher huts you stand,
Smiling on our children’s faces,
Catching all their pretty graces
With your pencil, laughing free,
Dandling babes upon your knee,
Talking to our wives at home
Of the boats that sure will come
Round by Fidra laden well,—
Still we fishers feel your spell,
And at times we hear your brave
Voice sound cheerly o’er the wave,
Saying that you still can love
Berwick Law, and Berwick Cove,—
Still for children in the Bay
Glad would give your life away.
On the shore of East Bay, North Berwick, stands a very beautiful granite cross of Celtic design. At its base are engraved the words: “Erected by public subscription to the memory of Catherine Watson of Glasgow, aged 19, who was drowned in the East Bay, 27th July, 1889, while rescuing a drowning boy. The child was saved—the brave girl was taken.”
(Poems, Ballads, and Bucolics, p. 208)
