Molly May

Just a lad I was of thirteen years
When my father passed away
And I had to take a job as a deck hand
On the Molly May

And the time I spent one Summer past
Turned into fifty years
And the sound she made as she broke the waves
Still rings within my ears

She was passed to me when I was twenty-three
Cap'n Mills went 'round the bend
He saw a forerunner on the dock one night
And never sailed again

Superstition be damned, I sailed her proud
Fair maiden of the sea
There was never another like her
And no one for her but me

I saw the time with me in my prime
No man could be my equal
Through the eye of a needle I'd sail her any day
When I grew older, I couldn't hold her
My courage slipped away
So they put a young boy from Canso
At the wheel of the Molly May

I was there to see her sail away
In the cold December haze
But the Canso boy had never seen the likes
Of the Southeast wind and waves

At the harbor's mouth, she drifted South
Right into Light House Rock
And he smashed her keel and laid her low
While I watched there from the dock

I saw the days amid devil ways
No man could be my equal
Through the eye of a needle I'd sail her any day
When I grew older, I couldn't hold her
My courage slipped away
So they put a young boy from Canso
At the wheel of the Molly May

...And I wish that I'd gone down, boys
At the wheel of the Molly May