She cast away from Buzzard's Bay in that year of our Lord. The whaling vessel Mary Gay with sixty hands aboard. Her hold full crammed with kegs and casks and Northerns in the sails. To round Cape Horn they'd set to task, to hunt the sea for whales.
Now round Cape Horn the gales blow hard and seas are cruel and high. Ice coats the canvass and the yards and clogs the seas thereby. It's there good ships oft come to grief and heard from nevermore. Twas there the Mary bucked and reefed as wind and water roared.
"God's fashioned not the whale nor sea" her Yankee Captain swore, "that whips New England men like we or forces us ashore. West lies the Japan Whaling Grounds and west we'll make our way - till this damned Horn we've come around or comes the Judgement Day!"
Waves smashed the sides like mallet strokes, the Main'sles tore to shreds. The decks awash, the scuppers choked and still she forged ahead. Till battered broadside by the crest and swamped beneath the swell, she broke her back and stove her breast and sank on down to Hell.
Round Cape Horn on a screaming night, when wind and waters boil - she sails there yet by spirit light, her hull decayed and spoiled. Her rat lines trimmed by drowned dead ghosts, her sails like moulded shrouds, the Mary sails as per her boast - forever as was vowed.
James Coplin
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