Cruel Mistress

She was living in San Francisco
Just a hundred yards from the bay
Watching the ships steam in and out
And shared the ocean’s play
Her mind would number the boats,
She could name the distant lands,
Of the crews from which they hailed
Then wipe the tears and say,


The ship is your mistress
When you leave your girl behind
You worship a capricious god
And she steals you, O, so blind
You gamble for a pittance
Serving lovers you cannot please
And the sirens songs echo from the seas
Yes, the sirens seduce another man,
To the seas.


She’d watched her father climb the gangway
Of a clipper ship in eighteen eighty six
Her mother held her hand that morn,
The home’s front door had never been fixed
Tears streamed down that woman’s face
Some fear in that woman's way
And the word had come from a trawler
That Davy Jone’s had had his say.


Yes, that ship was a cruel mistress,
And I can near him muttering still
But he’s gone to the locker below
And Jones has gotten his fill
That front door ne’er got the hinge
Nor the garden the new spring seed
For Anson took his chances
Now, Kathryn has his soul indeed.