My song on the topic....see the other thread
Subject: Lyr Add: THE BALLAD OF JOSEPH HAZELWOOD
From: *#1 PEASANT* - PM
Date: 07 Feb 02 - 09:39 PM

FOUND IT!
Looking for a tune:

THE BALLAD OF JOSEPH HAZELWOOD

I am courtly and I'm canny
But of wealth, I hadn't any
So to earn an honest penny
I've sailed the wide world round
No silver spoon was sent me
I must serve the sons of plenty
Lacking face and duty
They take the poor man's pound.

They say I'm a drunken rover,
A scoundrel and deceiver
But I can drink and still say sober
And stand steadfast to my ground
I am careful of my duties
Of mariners, I am the ablest
If they'd left me in the wheel-house
We'd have cleared Prince William Sound.

I have known and loved the cold seas
Better than wife or mistress
Hand and eye were the surest
And with success were crowned
But they forced me to my cabin
I was not at my proven station
And like a wounded dolphin
The Valdez ran aground.

And for now the silent sand lies
Memorial to dead seabirds
Awash with oil-blacked corpses
And fishes caught by crude
Were I sated and not drunken
Had overcome the censors
If not prisoner below decks
We'd never gone aground.

But now the courts have freed me
From the alcoholic's heavy mantle
The price of fine is steep though
The sentence I can keep
In its words comes real freedom
For this spirited canny captain
Now many rounds will order
While cleaning the sound's black border.

Derek Ward (Bolton, Lancs. England)
Conrad Jay Bladey (Linthicum, Md. USA)
4/1990.

The motto of this little lay
Some will anger others sway
The drinker may a thinker be
But when incompetent are sent
They always be disaster bent.
So learn you all that drink's no answer
But never take as guiding pastor
Those whose lessons fail to master.

Conrad Bladey