Around the Wild Cape Horn

I was born a land-bound farm boy
And in New England raised
The rippling of the wheat fields
Well they were my ocean waves
Each rise and fall, each cry and call
Of the crows across the corn
Were seagulls swooping around the bow
Of the ship I dreamed I'd
Sail around Cape Horn

My deck was the dusty farmyard
My mast was the telegraph pole
The windblown whine in the telegraph wire
Was the sound called in my soul
And it seemed to have been singing since
The day that I was born
You're gonna take a trip on a sailing ship
All the way around the wild Cape Horn

Well, I found that ship in Hamburg
And her name it was Peking
Our skipper's name was Jervis
Well I never met a man like him
He pulled two men out from
The sea, by the hair, in a raging storm
And he kept that grip on the sailing ship
All the way around the wild Cape Horn

Well, the cargo weighed five thousand tons
The ship three thousand more
An acre of sail was up aloft
Some seventeen stories tall
And we had a pig and a scruffy
Dog and a turkey fed on corn
Willing hands to drive her on
All the way around the wild Cape Horn

Well, it's four hours on and
It's four hours off
And you sleep in your wet clothes
The only dry thing on the ship
Is the cargo down below
Eleven thousand miles we sailed
Nigh on one hundred dawns
Thirty two sails on a heaving ship
Hauling us around the wild Cape Horn

Seventeen days we were becalmed
Then Friday the thirteenth
Sixty-eight great ships were lost in
The storm of the century
We blew into the Atlantic on
A sunlit sparkling morn
The turkey got sick, so we ate him quick
On the way around the wild Cape Horn

We lost two boys along the voyage
They got washed overboard
Silence from us down below
No one could put in words
Two empty bunks to mark the space
Their two lives to mourn
Torn between all life and death
All the way around the wild Cape Horn

Well, she had us sort of hypnotized
No time to catch our breath
If you want to love your life
You have to flirt with death
Sail close to the harnessed wind and
Treat all risks with scorn
A farm boy and an unyoked team
Ploughed their way around the wild Cape Horn

Mountain waves like avalanches
Crashed upon the decks
The screaming winds ripped ropes and spars
And tried to have us wrecked
But she rose and fell through foam and swell
Her sails all ripped and torn
Eight thousand tons, tossed like a cork
We made it 'round the wild Cape Horn

Well, she had us sort of hypnotized
No time to catch our breath
If you want to love your life
Well you have to flirt with death
Sail close to the harnessed wind and
Treat all risks with scorn
A farm boy and an unyoked team
Ploughed their way around the wild Cape Horn
A farm boy and an unyoked team
Ploughed their way around the wild Cape Horn