FanStory.com - Life Before the Mastby damommy

I watched the sea roll in with gentle wave,
and wanderlust spoke softly to my soul.
It whispered, “Come with me if ye be brave.”

There’d be exciting ventures to extol
like ones the old salts told by tavern fires.
How soon I’d learn how life would write my role.

What fool I be to listen to these liars
who knew just what to say to turn my head,
and spoke to childish dreams and youth’s desires.

I lived on brackish water and brown bread
for months, as I was told that was my fare,
the hardest cot, thin blanket was my bed.

I listened to men grumble as they’d swear
to ne’er again sign chits that sealed their fate,
but end their days with pipe and cozy chair.

I spent these many years before the mast,
and salt and sea and sun have had their toll,
each voyage I would swear would be my last.

I lived the hardest life amongst hard men,
and would I could, I’d do it all again.
I watched the sea roll in with gentle wave,
It whispered, “Come with me if ye be brave.”