The word I couldn't keep

A foreign shore behind me and a hundred more to go,
On stormy seas and starless nights, caught on a cold wind’s blow.
So many years have put my battered bow up to the test,
A long-forgotten promise coming home at last to rest.

For even in this darkness something calls for me to find,
And cities may all turn to ash, and stone walls fall to time,
My love still lies there buried under silent ice in sleep,
A grave left unattended by the word I couldn’t keep.

I stole you from another but you knew I’d leave someday,
I felt the tide pull on my bones told you I couldn’t stay.
I made a bet that I’d return and someday soon I will,
And though I’m many years too late, I hope you’ve waited still.

For even in this darkness something calls for me to find,
And cities may all turn to ash, and stone walls fall to time,
My love still lies there buried under silent ice in sleep,
A grave left unattended by the word I couldn’t keep.

I’ve been to Ceylon’s bluest coasts and back to Amsterdam,
And conquered mighty swells with just the line beneath my hands.
And now I rest far in the north, a broken heart to lie,
Forever under tattered sails and ‘neath the blackened sky.

Yet even in this darkness something calls for me to find,
And cities may all turn to ash, and stone walls fall to time,
My love still lies there buried under silent ice in sleep,
A grave left unattended by the word I couldn’t keep.

For even in this darkness something calls for me to find,
And cities may all turn to ash, and stone walls fall to time,
My love still lies there buried under silent ice in sleep,
A grave left unattended by the word I couldn’t keep.