For A Fragile Moment’s Ease – Ye Banished Privateers
By
A long way from the mainland forgotten by the crown There’s a cabin by the lookout cliff in this sleepy little town Where there’s laughter in the orchard and me small’uns run around And me soul mate sings a lovesong from a distant County Down
In a harbor town bordello with the cattle I was raised This mwas any years ago now and a long way from this place But to rise up from the gutters, there’s a price you have to pay You tell me, “Was it worth it?” when you’ve listened to my tale
I have fallen through the gallows, I’ve donned a priest man’s robe Got stuck in the windwards shallows with a tackle and a rope Made an orphan of a keelson, and I’ve stared a deadeye down Even bedded with a stern gun and I danced her off the brow
I brought fire down on Bristol, in Portal Royal I have bled And I’ve swung away me trusted boarding axe till navy decks ran red And I’ve smuggled shady documents on pestilential dead Sold out me loyal shipmates to save me sorry head
And I’ve sunk unarmed freighters, and I’ve watched the crewmen drown And I shot my mate Johansen in the back in Kingston town Even signed a sheet of paper to hunt my brethren down Then stole away the navy sloop and ran that shit aground
Now I’ve swum across the Lethe, now I’m resting on the shore I divided and I conquered, but now I sail no more For my love and for my children, for a fragile moment’s peace With all my sins I paid for this friend enter, be at ease