Farewell, Farewell to Privateer’s Wharf

By: Felix L. Perry

Down on the waterfronts of Halifax

Where grog is cheap and so they go

Young men listen to the fiddle music

Wild buxom women dancing to and fro

Farmer’s sons out to sow their oats

After a summer’s harvests in

Come Sunday they’ll be in church

Aye, but tonight they are needing sin

Young Felix has bonnie lass upon his knee

A hand up beneath her petticoat

While Walters got Jennie in the back room

You can be sure he’s bound to gloat

Georg Drake is looking kind of green

The room begins to spin and blur

Too much hops and yeast for him tonight

Ed laughs as his friend hits the floor

Over in a corner sipping lager beer

A stranger sits and nary says a sound

But smiles and tells the serving wench

Let me buy them rum all round

They tip their hats and smile at him

In gratitude for kindness shown

It’s hard times in the Maritimes

And this kind of generosity’s unknown

Five young men in their prime of life

Their minds so befuddled by the night

Now the stranger smiles and bids adieu

Slips into the dark and out of sight

And in the ally behind the tavern

He counts his ill-got shillings one by one

As the Jolly Tars of the Press gang

Continue on the dirty work that he begun

Billy clubs strike and in the night

Screams of pain and curses fill the air

“Aye you’ll all be coming with us now

‘tis a ship at sea you’ll learn to share!”