The Beaches of Tahiti

I’m a stranger here myself in this land I call a home, Through this village that I walk, down the streets I used to roam, With the cold December drizzle and a grey unyielding sky, And the brunt of England’s winter, as the leaves goes tumbling by. But my mind is miles away as I am forced to breathe a sigh, To the mem’ry of the beauty of a girl I called my “Sweetie,” On the black volcanic beaches on the island of Tahiti. I was a lone deserter from the H.M.S McKay, But I knew not how my life would change within that emerald bay, On those Polynesian shorelines I would redefine my life, With a girl I’d come to love and someday hope to make my wife, But the world’s a wicked demon, and is sometimes full of strife, As I find myself in Portsmouth, mid the filth and the graffiti, But my heart is not, it’s miles away, still living in Tahiti. I close my eyes and smell the herbal scent of jasmine tea, And the smell of floral wonders and exotic potpourri, And I see my native lover, by the bonfire on the beach, As her eyes express emotions too complex for normal speech, And I long to once more hold her, but through time I can not reach, So in mem’rys burning chapters, she has passed like Nefertiti, Long the splashing ocean waters of the Island of Tahiti. I know not what’s become of her, we’d time for no goodbyes, For the Royal Navy came and stole my life before my eyes, And impressed right back in service of her Majesty the Queen, I was forced to live the horrors of the merchant man’s routine, But each time I closed my eyes; I sat and dreamed a distant scene, Of an end to all the fighting, and the signing of a treaty, And the day I could return home to my lover on Tahiti. But twenty years have passed now and although the war is done, I know again I’ll never feel that South Pacific sun, And I’ll never feel the warmth of Sweetie’s skin against my skin, But until we meet in heaven, or the devil’s pit of sin, I shall dream about her every night until we meet again, To the mem’ry of the beauty of a girl I called my “Sweetie,” On the black volcanic beaches on the island of Tahiti.