Poems in Songs & Lyrics

The tide came in at Ballykeel
with a smell of rust and weed,
and the gulls cried out like hungry bairns
and the boats came home with speed.
But one boat did not come that night,
and the harbor bell rang low,
for the sea keeps what the sea takes
and it does not tell us so.

Sing hey for the salt, sing ho for the star,
sing for the lads on the water so far.
The wind she blows and the hearth burns bright,
but the sea keeps her own on a winter's night.

Young Colm had a girl on shore,
a ribbon in her hair,
and he swore he'd bring her silver spoons
from the markets over there.
He swore he'd bring her silken thread
and a comb of ivory,
but the sea keeps what the sea takes
and it keeps it from you and me.

Sing hey for the salt, sing ho for the star,
sing for the lads on the water so far.
The wind she blows and the hearth burns bright,
but the sea keeps her own on a winter's night.

His mother keeps a candle lit
in the window by the door,
and she sets his plate upon the cloth
as she did the night before.
For the sea keeps what the sea takes,
and the heart keeps what it will,
and the harbor bell rings low and slow
and the boats come home, but still.

Sing hey for the salt, sing ho for the star,
sing for the lads on the water so far.
The wind she blows and the hearth burns bright,
but the sea keeps her own on a winter's night.

The girl walks down to the harbor wall
with the ribbon gone from her hair,
and she casts no coin and she speaks no name
to the grey air standing there.
For the sea gives back what the sea will give,
a spar of wood, a shoe,
and the heart learns slow what the heart must learn:
to let the bell ring through.