Come Young Pirates, On Longboats Heading To Byzantium (X X V I I) Poem by Captain Cur

Saddened I turn from England's sandy bar,
I am off, off to fight another war,
and the wild pilgrimage of fate unfolds
to mine the riches of the ocean's gold.
The glinting waters spark a happy smile
charting course for lush and emerald isles;
treasure awaits to end a happy tale
losing pages where violence did prevail,
the sun at peace, its flames soon come to rest,
setting low, disappearing in the west,
venturing to where minds and hearts roam free
there she rises to light another sea.

I hear the songs that play a foreign strain;
see novel stars from shores of their domain,
soft moonlit scenes in unfamiliar night,
constellations inverted to my sight.
On an unknown ocean how, different I'd feel
to steer a narrow bark and raise an ancient sail,
on this passage, an enterprise of one,
surviving by belief and crusty seaman's blood.

Like a Viking with eyes and ears reborn
absorbing moments of an untamed world;
Jomsborg on the Oder Estuary
in the southern coast of the Baltic Sea
on longboats heading to Byzantium
where the freshness of hope will never pass
adventuring as their impatience bore
seafaring pleasures on sand stormed windy shores.

Morning comes and the fantasy is gone
in eastern rise returns the faithful one
with newness and fair tidings, I am met,
steeped in Viking lore pounding in my breast!