I thought I heard the Old Man say, <br />(Leave her, Johnnie, leave her!) <br />'Her course is set for Dead Man's Bay <br />(And it's time for us to leave her!) <br />Dead Man's Bay where the old ships lie <br />(Leave her, Johnnie, leave her!) <br />When deepsea days are all gone by!' <br />(And it's time for us to leave her!) <br /> <br />Time for us to leave her, Johnnie, time to go! <br />The same seas'll toss us, the same winds blow; <br />We'll have our fun and folly, dreaming and desire, <br />And she gone to ashes on a landward fire. <br /> <br />Ah, the grand old days, Johnnie! - wind and weather, <br />Days of sun and nights of storm we knew together, - <br />The game we played with old Cape Stiff and our lives the stake, <br />Turn and say good-bye, Johnnie, for old sake's sake! <br /> <br />Long and long after, far and far away, <br />Maybe you'll remember, maybe then you'll say, <br />When you hear an old name spoken or an old song sung: <br />'Ay, once we sailed in her, when she and we were young.' <br /> <br />Old men nodding by a hearth ashore… <br />Old ships decaying that use the sea no more . . . <br />That's the way it goes, Johnnie, since the world begun, <br />And it's time for us to leave her, for her day is done! <br /> <br />And to Dead Man's Bay she's bound at last <br />(Leave her, Johnnie, leave her!) <br />Where storm and shine alike are past <br />(And it's time for us to leave her!) <br />No more labour, no more laughter, <br />(Leave her, Johnnie, leave her!) <br />One more watch and a long sleep after <br />(And it's time for us to leave her!)<br /><br />Cicely Fox Smith<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dead-man-s-bay/
