The Fate of Amber Leigh

About a hundred years ago
a young man went to sea. 
He sailed upon a fishing boat
they called Persephone.

One inky night the waves rose up
and tossed the ship around.
They tried their best to get her  
back to solid ground. 

But every man aboard that night
sunk to a briny grave
the ship was ripped to pieces,
not a single sailor saved.

The young man had a wife
her name was Amber Leigh.
She stood upon the cliffs
above the salty sea

The thund’ring waves came crashing
down around her ears;
spray from the rolling ocean 
licking at her tears.

Her cries rang out; she could not bear
to be a widowed wife
and so into the sea that day
she threw away her life. 

Now when the inky darkness,
reaching like a hand
clouded with a sea mist
creeps across the land

They say you’ll still see Amber
on an endless search 
among the weathered tombstones
next to a little church

For Amber and her Sailor
had vowed, their wedding day,
that when they met their deaths,
there, side by side they’d lay. 

But fishermen who’s lives are lost
in an ocean’s bitter squalls
aren’t laid to rest in graveyards
behind the churchyard walls.

So Amber searches endlessly
for a place to lay her head
but lost without her Sailor
she’s joined the walking dead. 


october 2005
Janet Reid