Come all of you people, both the young
and the old.
Sit by the warm fire,
there is a tale to be told.

Gather around and listen
to the call of the sea.
For I will tell you the life
of Black Cat Magee.

Black Cat Magee was born
in a storm.
In a ramshackle shack
that was none to warm.

His father a sailor
out on the blue sea.
His mother a milk maid
as poor as can be.

A storm claimed his father,
when he was just five.
The waves crashed the ship
and none were alive.

Some say that his mother
died of broken heart
And buried by Black Cat
his bad luck did start

Living in alleys,
and living by fate,
Learning too early
the evils of hate

Longing for laughter
and a good home.
But his blood was tainted
with the sea foam

He boarded a ship
bound for fortune and fame,
His rage and his fury
gave him his name.

"Don't cross the path of
the dreaded Black Cat
for he'll cut you deep
with a knife in your back"

The schooner was taken
by a ship named Sea Hag.
Black Cat now a pirate,
sailing under a black flag.

For rage and hate and greed
is the pirates code.
Swiftly in time on his own ship
he rode.

A triple masted galleon
named the Cats Fang,
soon terrorized the ships
in the Spanish Main

Of bandits and killers
were most of his crew
A demon-cat on crossed swords
was on the flag that he flew.

Manys the battles that
he had fought.
"He must have nine lives"
by many was thought

But he was a captured
betrayed by a friend.
The pirating of Black Cat
was at an end.

But it was on his last night
sitting in his cell.
He told me this story
that I now do tell.

For he told the reason
he kept the name
Of Black Cat Magee
though it caused him much pain

The name he kept to remind him
of how his luck would not stay
He knew that on the galows
rope he would sway

The moral of the story
of Black Cat Magee,
some think complex
but its simple to see

For anger and hate
must not be let loose
Or like Black Cat Magee
you will swing from the noose

09 March, 2002