A hundred thousand miles from land,A hundred fathom deep.Sorry Bill and Windy Hill and Salvador they sleep.The cod they hit their eyeballs out these twenty years are gone,And the hollaback rolls above the poles they hung their hammocks on.But wrinkled like a salted hake and bearded like a tree,Will the long gone Jones come back to land he never thought he'd see?I only see horizons for twenty years, Siddy,And I will tell you here and now just how this come to be.I was standing trick with Windy Hill of a clear night, Siddy,So clear I see a petrel fly between the moon and me.The ship was sailing soft and sweet like a lady about to sing.I looked away at the lowered side and I see a peculiar thing.I never see such a curious thing in all my years at sea.But there come a fog bank blowing in against what wind there be.And for as I so much as spit on my thumb and see what ailed the breeze,The vessel slid into that bank of fog like a maggot into a cheese.We gawped at the rigging lights go out as if they'd been doused in milk.And Windy's hair crept up on his head with a sound like rustling silk.Well, I stood there breathing them fog drops in and thinking,What can this be?I never sung out to Windy Hill. He never sung out to me.So I smelt the east and I smelt the west like you do when you're sick of fog.And all of a sudden I smelt green fields and sun on a cranberry bog.And out of that mull an island come like a ship a-sailing by.Her bow was made of a granite cliff a hundred fathom highAnd the monstrous wave from her forefoot resists to the sky.We felt the vessel starting up and Windy spoke with a croak,Mr. Spagat, said Windy Hill.But that was the last he spoke.And as I saw that bow wave roll against the milky moon,The honest thought come into my head that he'd spoke too soon.We roared straight up through that bank of fog in the moonlight white as wine.I look around and I see the stars and icy cold sky shine.The planets out of the milky way come flicking, the vessel spires.I see the earth like a rubber ball down there amongst the stars.I see the moon like a big cartwheel.I touched her as I went by.Want to know what the moon feels like?Feels like a headache's eye.Then all of a sudden we hit the top.We started whirlin' blind and all the rags of all the sails went streamin' out behind.Thinks I when she drops she'll hit the sea like a rock hove into a well.So I better jump.And so I jump.And bless my dear hat how I fell.I see the earth come up to me, calm in the moonlit night.And the ocean big as the whole wide world just waitin' for me to light.And there in the middle of all that sea, bone white like a damn great tray,Was that fog bank sittin' and bubblin' in a most peculiar way.Well I lit with a monstrous crashin' thump that nigh unshackled me.But it weren't the ocean I landed in, it was the top of an elm tree.It come to me then like a blast of light, clear as a boilin' spring.I'd lit like a bird on that island that started the whole damn thing.Then I hear a terrible moanin' sound, like a gale in the vessel's spires.And I see the ship come whirlin' down between the moon and stars.She struck the sea with a scatterin' crash, smashed like a china cup.Nor sorry bill, nor windy hill, nor Salvador, come on.Well I peeked through the trees at the island's bow.And there was a binnacle light, and a compass box, and a monstrous great wheel,and a critter takin' a sight.And I see one half a cloven hoof, and I know who it was all right.Well the voyage we begun that night went on for twenty years or more.We sailed all over the seas there be, and never come to shore.We sailed all over the seas there be, on mischief and murder bent.You hear about ships that never come home, I know where them vessels went.And how did I come ashore, says you? Says you, for here I be.Well one night we had a hell of a storm, and the island sunk, said he.Bob?