From: cass8806@elan.glassboro.edu (KYLE CASSIDY)
Subject: the pilot and the bells
Organization: Glassboro State College, Glassboro, NJ
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 15:00:18 GMT


a sea shanty if you will ....




                     The Pilot and the Bells


                                I


All pilots of endangered lives amidst the sea
Knew the whereabouts O' Maccollough's reef
Where bells O' three, did chime almost a mile from
Lazy shore, heard above oceans crash and heaven's roar
Warning sailors of the sound
The bells of the reef whisper: "go round! go round!"

T'was heavy in the tossed torrential night
When dancing ore the waves With sails a-fright
Came the New England Ship, Barnaly Cock
Headed straight for that deadly rock
But the sailors herd not the bells fearsome pound:
"Clang! Clang! Clang! Go round! Go round!"

And on the deck lashed to the mast
Were pilot and captain the formers face
Pallid cast. But the brave sailors fear
Was not for he, but for his young wife in Balantrae
Who at that moment heard a curious sound:
A lonely whisper:"go round! go round!"

The master called to the pilot: "Should stay my hand?"
"The course is true!" replied the latter, "My bearing must
	stand!"
The captain noddedhis face grim and stern
He toughened his grip and held the course firm.
The mainsail splintered and was suddenly downed,
The wind held a murmurr: "go round! go round!"

The waves built higher across the sky
Sailors prayed and prepared to die
In the sea of fire and deadly reef
Which lay in wait like crafty thief
Told of only by the sound
Of bobbing bells: "go round! go round!"

The captian shouted: "I know we're headed for Macollough's Hell!"
"But still I haven't heard the bells!
I ask you again pilot, Is this course true?
Else the devil will take usboth vessel and crew!"
The warning bells were not to be found
The storm drowned them out: "go round! go round!"

The pilot's face had whitened a deadly pale
As he remembered his wife at home in sunny vale
And how he longed to be there with her too
"I say hold fast captain, my course is true!"
And thusly in tattered sails gowned
They heard the sudden bells shrieking: "Go Round! Go Round!"

"You fool!" cried the captain, "you're death to us all!"
His face turned as ashen as funeral pall
"I hear the three bells O' Macollough's rock!
Tomorrow, to bloated bodies, the gull will flock!"
And the warning bells now did loudly sound:
     "CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! GO ROUND! GO ROUND!"

With storm weathered fingers he spun the wheel
And Macollough's reef ripped through the keel.
The ship opened up to oceans blue:
For the pilots course had been true.
And as the crew one by one drowned
There tolled the bells: "go round! go round!"

                               II

On the morrow when the squall had past
The captain awoke still roped to the mast
About him flotsam on the waves
And the bobbing corpses of poor sailor knaves.
Somewhere close he could hear the bells:
"clang! clang! clang! all is well! all is well!"

He untied his fetters and floated free
As did drowned pilot from Balantrae
His eyes were glazed with a look of fear
And the captain's own shed a tear
At his folly which had sent to the rock
The men of the vessel Barnaly Cock.
He alone crawled from the sea
And made his way to Ballantrae
There to see the widowed wife
Of the blessed pilot who'd lost his life
And to tell her of the rock
That sank the vessel Barnaly Cock
With tattered clothes and dust of road

At last he came to the pilot's abode
And greeted him there with innocent face
Was she who'd n'ere again know the young pilot's embrace.
"I've sad news to tell you," the bedraggled man said
"Our ship was wrecked. The young pilot is dead."

Tears filled her eyes and she fell to the ground
As he told her how the good pilot was drowned.
He carried her in and set her to bed
He made a cold compress for grief-stricken head.
"Tell me, oh tell me, dear captain divine,
Again of his death, that I may end my repine!"
He told the widow of her huspangs last stand
Between howling wind and rocky land:
"The waves washed 'ore from bow to stern
Like pits of hell the ocean churned.
Fierce was the wind but brave were the men;
I numbered my crew at one hundred and ten.
They set to the rigging and lowered the sail
And battened the hatches to prepare for the gale.
The pilotdear pilotso noble and blue
Laid down the course, one he thought to be true
But his numbers were slightly off in the storm
And we n'ere heard the bells to warn
So sudden and vicious we were brought to our grief
On the sad stones O' Macollough's reef.
And the Barnaly Cock, she sank at last;
The pilot and I were roped to the mast.
Into the sea that bough did go,
I up above,and he down below.
I alone survived the rock
Of all the crew of the Barnaly Cock."

                               III

His conscious it plagued him for the lie that he told
It beset him with torment, it racked him with cold.

                               IV

A heroes welcome was had for he
When he at last made Balantrae.
Citations upon his breast were pinned,
And tragic songs about him penned:
The valiant captain who survived the wreck
And swam to shore on floating drek.
Also were great tales of woe
Told of those who fared not so.

                                V

Still was he silent about the truth of the wreck
And n'ere again set he foot on a deck,
A landsman and farmer was he now
To earn his living behind a plow.
The lovely young widow, she stood by his side
And past a year and a day; she was his bride
A raven haired maiden, aged twenty-two,
Set to make her life over anew.
Leaving the church in wedding gown
The newly-wed couple made for the town
Along the high cliffs, high over the sea
Three horses pulled them to Ballantrae.
With her hand in the captain's and the wind in her hair
She secretly wished her young pilot were there.
To hear his sweet laughter, to kiss his gaunt face,
To dress up for him in white stockings and lace....
But dreams dear as those were never to be,
A farmers wife now was she
And so would she spend the rest of her days
And not to dwell on such dreary lays.
The captain smiled and reined his team
Before his eyes unfolded a dream:
Up ahead in the darkness something came from the wood
And there in the highway, the young pilot stood.
His visage was morbid and covered with kelp
And through the black evening there came the bells pelt
O! to the captain that hideous sound,
The screamdeadly paean of:"GO ROUND! GO ROUND!"
Hard he reigned the horses left
And stumbled they ore' the cleft
And thusly carriage, riders, and horses three
Did fall form the high cliffs of Balantrae.

                               VI

And many's the time I've heard townsfolk say
That the lovers still stand there at night to this day
For only in death could they be together
What a small price to pay for a love that's forever!
And of the captain, the captain, where do evil men go?
Some like to think that he's mired below:
Sinking and drowning and guarding the reef,
Shattered specter, in the belief
He's existing only to implore
From the depths of death to the imperiled shore
The bells now lament, a pitiful sound:
"go round! go round! go round!"



-- kyle cassidy
   cass8806@elan.blassboro.edu

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