And a Candle Burned

 © David Watts

Victoria winter 1996

He was already nearing thirty, gave it up and started over

He’d been skipper on a collier ship off England’s eastern shore

When he joined the Royal Navy as an ordinary seaman:

His passport to horizons where no one had gone before.

And a candle burned in the lantern in the focsle

And a candle burned as he learned the stars and seas

And a candle burned as he charted up the Saint Lawrence

And a candle burned to Québec and victory.

James Cook received a summons to lead the expedition

To plot Venus’ position from Tahiti’s southern stand

To reach into the cosmos, the offered the commission:

We seek the same precision you showed in Newfoundland.

And a candle burned in the rude observatory

And a candle burned as they waited for the day

And a candle burned as he broke the sealed orders

And a candle burned to Antarctic all the way.

Elizabeth was his anchor when he was far from harbour

He told her when they called him, “This last trip and I’ll be done.”

She said, “I will remember, as you seek your Northwest Passage:

Each night I’ll light a candle until you’re safely home.

And a candle burned in the window until morning

And a candle burned till the dawning of the day

And a candle burned as he fell on his last atoll

And a candle burned so many miles away.

His sailors bawled like babies, they said “We’ve lost a father”

As they left their fallen leader, turned back the way they’d come

And the word spread out like ripples round the planet home before them:

The stars James Cook once steered by—his light now shines among.

And a candle burned as the limies bested scurvy

And a candle burned as Bligh came safely home

And a candle burned as Vancouver rounded his Island

And a candle burns until the morning comes.

And a candle burns when with kindness we temper our mettle

And a candle burns until we know we’re one

And a candle burns when men are both strong and gentle

And a candle burns until the night is done.