That to be Heaven Anne hath a way!
She hath a way,
Anne Hathaway,
To be Heaven's self Anne hath a way.


This little poem is by Charles Dibdin (1748-1814), the writer of about
1200 sea-songs, at one time great favorites with sailors. It appeared,
in 1792, in his long-forgotten novel, "Hannah Hewit, or the Female
Crusoe", and Sir Sidney Lee conjectures that it may have been composed
on the occasion of the Stratford jubilee of 1769, in the organization
of which Dibdin aided the great actor, David Garrick. In the "Poems
of Places", New York, 1877, edited by Henry W. Longfellow, this poem
is assigned to Shakespeare on the strength of a persistent popular
error.[14] In his "Life" Dibdin says: "My songs have been the solace
of sailors in their long voyages, in storms, in battle; and they have
been quoted in mutinies to the restoration of order and discipline".
It has been asserted that they brought more men into the navy than all
the press gangs could do.

[Footnote 14: Sir Sidney Lee, "A Life of Shakespeare", new edition,
London, 1915, p. 26, note.]

The poem has sometimes been attributed to Edmund Falconer (1814-1879),
an actor and dramatist, born in Dublin, and whose real name was Edmund
O'Rourke. However, his poem entitled "Anne Hathaway, A Traditionary
Ballad sung to a Day Dreamer by the Mummers of Shottery Brook",[15]
falls far below the lines we have quoted in poetic quality, as may be
seen from the opening stanza (the best), which runs as follows: