I've been looking around for a memorial song for an old merchant marine friend who recently passed away. I've not sure I'll be able to get through this one leading it myself but it sure is spot on. It's from one of the Old Sailor-Poets that I've been featuring on a thread of that name, cobbling a tune together from Larry Kaplan's "Song for Gale" and Michael Burton's "Night Rider's Lament." Here's what it looks like for now (copy and paste into WORD/TIMES/12 to line up the chords):

MID-WATCHES

(Poem by Burt Franklin Jenness, from OCEAN HAUNTS, edited by Burt Franklin Jenness,
Empire Publishing Co., New York, US, © 1934, P. 73.
Adapted by Charlie Ipcar 3/16/07
Tune: inspired by "Song for Gale" by Larry Kaplan and "Night Rider's Lament" by Michael Burton)

Chorus:

-----------F------------------------------------C
And you climbed the old bridge, looked into the night,
----------F-----------------------------------C
And the wind and the spray stung your face;
------------F---------------------------C-------------Am
While the stars overhead were all dancing and bright,
----------G----------------G7--------C
And the ship plunged a-way into space.

C--------------------------------G------------G7
Will you ever forget the mid-watches at sea?
-----------C---------------------------G
How you tumbled out sleepy and dazed,
------F-------------------------------C-------------Am
And though you maneuvered as still as could be,
----G-------------G7----------C
Re-member the chorus you raised –
---------F--------------------------------C
As you bumped into hammocks, or stepped on a mate
------------F------------------------C
Who was caulking it off on the deck?
------------F--------------------------C------------Am
Then you hustled up forward for fear you'd be late,
------G------------------G7-----------------C
Your pea-coat pulled snug 'round your neck. (CHO)

Will you ever forget the long tricks at the wheel;
All your thoughts and your plans and your fears?
The things you'd imagine – the dangers you'd feel,
With the creaks and the groans of the gears;
How you'd wake with a snap from some dream of the shore,
As a comber loomed ahead ghostly pale,
Or you'd start at the crash and the thundering roar,
As a beam-sea swept over her rail? (CHO)

(Same as the chorus)

And didn't those hours seem lonelier, too,
When the moon and the stars went to bed,
And it seemed, sometimes, there was no one but you,
Sailing into that black hole ahead?

NOTES:

"Caulking it off" is old sailor slang for sleeping on deck. For inspections sailors would traditionally line up parallel to the caulked deck boards, and evidently when they were napping on deck they would do the same.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble