The Hepburns

Mermaid

Album: Architecture Of The Ages [Feat. Estella Rosa] [2021]
Author: Matthew David Jones © Elefant Publishing

I was a lowly deckhand in the reign of Charles the Second

Just a teenage boy when I first put to sea

A life on the ocean wave, at least that’s what I reckoned

But providence had other plans for me

Upon the River Medway, we were taken by surprise

A Dutch cannonball put pay to my short-lived career

I fashioned a makeshift raft and fastened myself to it

And put my faith in providence to steer

 

He was a sorry sight to behold

White as a sheet, shivering cold

And despite what they did to me

I couldn’t leave him there to die on the Zuiderzee

 

I was taken prisoner by the people of Edam

In the year of your lord fourteen-hundred-and-three

They took away my sea moss and they took away my shells

Gave me some meat and cheese and a bucket for my tail

I was taken to Haarlem and paraded as a trophy

They taught me how to spin and taught me how to pray

I could put up with the food but not so the religion 

With each passing day, I was wasting away

 

She was a sorry sight to behold

She needed the sea to make her whole

And despite what they’d do to me

I vowed to return this poor creature to the Zuiderzee

 

My incarceration was brought to an end

When one of the locals, I managed to befriend

He knew that I was out of, out of my element

He left me at the city gates and back to the sea I went

 

She was a sight to behold

Covered in moss, impervious to cold

Illuminous like plankton, an unearthly light around her shone

She saved my life and then she was gone