Thursday 20 September 2012

"The Legend of Port Quin"



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I see your pale face at the small cottage window
Your sad eyes always looking far over the sea
Searching the skyline for the fishing boats coming
But there’ll be no more homecomings for you and for me.

Every man in the village was out for the fishing
Every boat in the village was out on the sea
When the weather came storming in from the nor’ west
Now there’ll be no more homecomings for you and for me.

Grandfathers, Fathers and their sons now just learning
The hard ways of fishing and working the sea
In one short afternoon, so suddenly taken
So there’ll be no more homecomings for you and for me.

Every man in the village so suddenly drown-ded
Every wife, every girl now a widow must be
And now every small cottage window is suddenly tear stained
There’ll be no more homecomings for you and for me.

I was young and was strong and was happily married
My young wife would sing her sweet love songs to me
Now I see her in black in the small tear stained window
There’ll be no more homecomings for I’m lost at sea.

I see your pale face at the small cottage window
Your sad eyes still looking far over the sea
For three hundred years still searching the horizon
But there’ll be no more homecomings for you and for me.

I’ve watched as the slates from the roofs began slipping
Watched as the weeds grew where we played happily
But still I see your dear face in the small tear stained window
As I watch from my berth here in the stormy grey sea.

(Fading)
There’ll be no more homecomings for you and for me.
No scones by the fire as you pour me my tea
No singing me love songs as you sit on my knee
There’s no more homecomings for you and for me.

Copyright © Res JFB 26th August 2010.

I wrote this after hearing about the Legend of Port Quin. The legend goes that in 1698 all the men of Port Quin were drowned in a storm that sprang up suddenly one afternoon while they were fishing. All the women of the small village were left widowed or orphaned and had to move away because without any men to fish, the village starved. Port Quin was left abandoned.


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