The Brig Lily

Saint Stephen’s morn the summons came, saying there was work,
They knew me to be keen and taut, nor ever known me shirk.
‘Now if you are for coming lad, needs must be quick and soon’.
Yet I’d no more venture Kitterland than the dark side of the Moon.

I served my time in the running trade, some wrecking on the side,
My life spent on this iron bound coast, a slave to wind and tide.
When you turn a coin at salvaging, it behoves you to beware.
There’s little gain in wrecking if you’re not the first man there.

I am not of the gentry with their arrogance and their greed.
No more was I a buccaneer I reject the cut throat creed,
Yet well aware the traits of both, self-seeking, murderous stealth,
To go that day to Kitterland, was to hazard life and health.

Hard aground full eighteen hours, now that’s too long by half,
The best of what she carried, might well be safely on the Calf.
The Lily was a curst death trap black powder filled her hold,
I’d not set foot on Kitterland for all The Raggat’s gold.

When she blew the shock was felt some twenty miles away,
Two cannons flung from off her deck; To Scarlet? So they say!
Appalling questions left unanswered, dire suspicion unexplained,
Yet when the debris settled, not one trace of theft remained.

Nine and twenty men that day all torn to rags and shreds,
Bloody rocks all round The Sound festooned with legs and heads.
The cost to those who buried the dead, was many a grisly sight,
And to that account we’ve all since paid, many a sleepless night.

There are Captains standing orders, you all know their rigid form,
No flame burns in a wooden ship when she’s riding out the storm.
The spark which wrought such carnage, struck by unscrupled hand,
To make widows and leave orphans, that grim day on Kitterland.

David Kelly