Comfortless Cove Lyrics - Barry Nisbet

When I first saw this island I was just 23, 

With a set of brass buttons and a soft rolling sea 

We had chased a slave ship from the Bight of Benin, the gunpowder still clung to my clothes 

We anchored at Georgetown and made our repairs 

Where Green Mountain rose high through the tropical air, 

As we sailed up the west coast we lowered our flag for the poor souls at Comfortless Cove. 

In Freetown's great harbour we watered the fleet 

In charge of a launch I steered for the creek 

In the shade of the mangroves we swatted mosquitoes and loaded the barrels aboard. 

I cried out for Orkney when the fever set in, 

So the ship's surgeon told me as he swabbed my hot skin, 

But by 14 days out I was so sick and weak that at Ascension they put me ashore. 

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(CH): Ohh, now the light hurts my eyes, as I write my last letter back home, 

You're as far out of reach as the waves on the beach as I lie here at Comfortless Cove, as I lie here at Comfortless Cove. 

Now the ringing in my ears rises up to a scream, 

I wake with the shivers and I see them again, 

Shackled together they trudge up the sand, their faces bowed doon wi the shame, 

They pass right before me with a rattle and stamp, 

And I hear the music in their low mournful chant, 

Takin some comfort from the beat o their feet and a spirit that cannot be chained. 

Ohh, now the light hurts my eyes, as I write my last letter back home 

You're as far out of reach as the waves on the beach as I lie here at Comfortless Cove, 

As I die here at Comfortless Cove. 

Some here read from the Bible to find their relief, 

'I fear not the dark for thou walketh with me', 

Some turn tae the rum and I don't grudge them some air of comfort to lighten their way, 

In the midst of a dream of the wild Birsay shore 

A wave of the fever comes over me once more 

and I feel my heart race and a rushing of blood, and a whiteness that cuts to my brain 

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To the beat of my pulse there's the splashing of oars, 

And I watch as a longboat approaches the shore, 

One man jumos to the water, the painter in hand, it's a ship full of Orkneymen brave, 

And there's Rognvald, there's Einar, there's Harald the pale, 

There's Thorfinn and Sigurd, there's Magnus himsel, 

And I feel my pain lift as I crawl down the sand and I drag myself into the waves. 

Ohh, and I'll make one last wish, as I'm pulled to the gunwale above, 

That the weak and the pained, the lost and the chained find some peace in Comfortless Cove, 

May you find peace in Comfortless Cove.