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The Wreck Of The Widow Three
The sea’s an unforgiving miss,
and a sinking ship’s her prize,
when gale winds swamp a sailors soul,
to smother drowning cries.
The rays of the sun, rose high o’er head,
on a balmy afternoon,
as billowed sail caught a westward wind,
‘twas a perfect day in June.
A captain sailed from Gloucester port,
on a calm and friendly sea,
‘twas a schooner ship, on her maiden trip,
christened the Widow Three.
Her helmsman steered a steady course,
as the bow slipped o’er the swells,
it’s mainsail filled, and jib stretched taut,
as they bid dry land farewell.
Now outward bound to a fishing ground,
her deck rode high and dry.
With a whit of pluck and lady luck,
her holds would soon fill high
Two sister ships had ne’er returned,
when a ill nor’east wind blew,
all hands fell lost, to the tempest’s night,
on the Widows one and two.
The sea’s an unforgiving miss,
and a sinking ship’s her prize,
when gale winds swamp a sailors soul,
to smother drowning cries.
‘Twas three days out, ’n the winds grew calm,
the Widow lie dead still,
her timbers creaked, and rigging groaned,
in a fog’s forbidding chill.
Now a sailor’s fright, oft’ comes at night,
in the shroud of a specter’s hue,
and this eve’s bane, when the gray mist waned,
was the Widows one and two.
Two ships appeared, adrift, quite near,
on a path nigh straight ahead,
and lashed to the wheel, like a dream surreal,
stood their grisly masters, dead.
One passed to starboard, one to port,
so close you could see their eyes.
Like a stench of death, with fetid breath,
sailed an ocean’s shipwrecked prize.
A superstitious sailor’s thoughts,
run rampant, clutched by fear,
and night passed slow, by those who know,
their fate just drifted near.
To the Captain’s dread, the sun rose red,
with a stiff breeze, north by east,
and the first mate braced, as an ill wind raced,
for a gale is the oceans beast.
She came about, swung to the wind,
the swells rode ‘neath the prow,
then listed hard to starboard’s side,
as waves swamped o’er the bow.
Her belly filled with the mistress sea,
and slipped to the ocean’s floor,
with all hands lost to the tempest’s wind,
the schooner sailed no more.
The sea’s an unforgiving miss,
and a sinking ship’s her prize,
when gale winds swamp a sailors soul,
to smother drowning cries.
Once in a while when a ships becalmed,
on a fog bound misty night,
eyes seem betrayed, as the gray mist fades,
with a glimpse of a ghostly sight,
for she joined her phantom sister ships,
three Widows set adrift,
to feed a sailor’s tortured dreams
of a death not often swift.
‘Tis sometimes said in seaman’s myth,
how bad luck came to be,
and death strikes thrice, before it ends,
for the Widows one, two, three.
The sea’s an unforgiving miss,
and a sinking ship’s her prize,
when gale winds swamp a sailors soul,
to smother drowning cries.
