Unlucky Sailor

Oh did they bring you flowers did the church bells ring?
Did this cold ground ever feel your lover's tears?
When you dreamed of those far away lands did you dream
You might spend eternity here-- poor sailors
That you might spend eternity here

Unlucky sailors still here on dry land
Would you rather have stayed forever in those waves
Some kind soul placed a stone here to say
Now you're lying forever in a nameless grave

All I hear is the wind and the dry leaves that blow
On a stormy night, can you still hear the sea?
To sleep beneath a stone so close to your home
So far from those places you hoped you would see
Some day, all those places you hoped you would see

Unlucky sailor did you know the end was near
Unlucky sailor, did you pray that you'd be saved?
On an unlucky ship on an unlucky day
Unlucky sailor in a nameless grave

Four times 40 winters have all come and gone
It hardly matters now but did you love, and were you brave?
But for these weathered stones and the stories we tell
You'd be long forgotten in a nameless grave
Poor sailor, forgotten in a nameless grave

© 2009 by Harvey Reid

As recorded on #122 "Wreck of the Isidore"

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