The Phoenix

By Kathryn Morski

NOTE:  This is done with a continuing drone strum between Dm and C, using partial chords.  You can simulate it with the chords below.

Dm                         C                Dm                        C
It’s down to the harbor.  The fog’s rolling in
Dm                  C                       Dm
Smelling sweet of the smoke and the spray,
Dm                         C                 Dm
And my heart is as heavy as any dead thing
Dm              C          Dm
For the Phoenix is sailing today.

C                           Dm     Am
My love is away on the morning tide,
Dm              Am       Dm
Sailing fast on the wind, so free!
C                            Dm     Am
And he’s left me a babe and a silver ring
Dm              C                 Dm
And a promise to come back to me,
Dm              C                 Dm
And a promise to come back to me.

I’ve found a wee cottage for me and my babe
Looking over the harbor and town
And I sit with the sewing that keeps us both fed
And I watch for his ship homeward bound.
And the fog laps below me like waves on a bow
And the firs rise above like a mast.
Has my lover sailed off to a life far away?
Is he lost?  Will he come home at last?

For my love is away on a morning tide…

Though my youth is well over, the men come to call
And they don’t understand as send them away
That I think of my love, and him only.
For I see them grow old and grow drunken or stout,
Watch them rave, watch them fade, watch them roam,
And I’d rather be his who is long time gone
Than to weep for a man who comes home.

For my love is away on a morning tide…

Now my babe is a lad with his father’s green eyes
That turn ever more to the sea.
As he grows, I can see he is torn, as his dad,
By his love for the ships and for me.
So I hold back my thoughts as the gulls wheel above,
As the fog lifts our home like a tide,
And I sail on the course I have chosen to sail
With the ghost of my love by my side.

For my love is away on a morning tide…

Back to dialogue Words

Back to Kathryn's Words.