Come! Sail with me the Spanish Sea
Deep-strewn with pirate plunder
Now on a tack, now running free,
Now the lee rail rolling under!
Again to hold a wheel on course
With bow wash flying aft,
And match a rainsquall’s sudden force
On a yawing pitching craft
Aboard once more a heeling deck
As trade winds bloat the sails,
We’ll beat close-hauled by Deadman’s Neck
And revel in the gales
That churn the emerald waters white
And, keening through the shrouds,
Scrub clean the sky o’er Norman’s Bight
With clumps of cotton clouds.
Northwest we’ll sail a steady reach
To moor off Jost Van Dyke
Then steer the dinghy from boat to beach.
For a grainy barefoot hike
Along the sand to Foxy’s Bar …
Dirt floor and palm thatch roof …
Foxy’s Ballads … his old guitar,
And rum that’s 200 proof.
We’ll drop our hook in Fat Hogs’ Bay
Where Blackbeard berthed his bunch
We’ll toast the sunset from Sandy Cay
With shipmates and hard rum punch.
Baked by the sun! Caked by spray!
Raked by tropical rain!
Tired of hauling on lines all day!
… Oh, to do it again!
Bill Dowey