I'll sing you a song, my friend,
About my cousin Willie's end,
And sadly do I say that yet I remember him well.
He was an iron miner when,
His fishin' got slow but then,
They've left it up to me his story to tell.

Islands of ice and snow,
Stand like a gunner's row,
Twenty miles from nowhere, where they'd rather not go.
From all around they came, on ferries that have no name,
And lie forgotten now where nobody knows.

November winds they came,
Brought on their aches and pains,
Little did they know asleep in their cabins below,
Two ferries there they lay, upon each other's right of way,
And all too late they heard their cold whistles blow.

Willie could swim quite well,
Quite the best I've heard them tell,
No one worried much about our Willie that way,
But on that night he cried, as his earthly engine died,
And to the bottom down, went Willie that day.

When all is said and done,
When sometimes my fishing's done,
When I think this business has all but faded away,
There on an Autumn eve, from my other self take leave,
I think about our Willie, asleep in the bay.


Submitted By: john christopher
From the collection: Molasses Bread and Tea