John Charles Buckley with his one man crew
set sail for Boston on the ocean blue.
With a makeshift sail and with favorable winds
they left Ireland behind and their journey begins.
Our cockleshell heroes soon lost sight of shore.
Not even a gull could they see anymore.
The days passed by slowly as they worked, side by side,
Slaves to the wind and the whims of the tide.
The Atlantic holds terrors,I cannot deny;
icebergs and fearful waves twenty feet high.
One starless night as they battled a squall
they were tossed like a cork with each waves rise and fall.
Sunburned and hungry, they started to drift
and their sense of time passing had started to slip
when they spotted a seabird, a sure sign of shore:
The harbor of Boston- their next port of call.
Their small wooden rowboat with the sail ripped and torn
was tied up to the dockside that September morn.
Heroes or Fools? I'll let you split the difference.
Theirs the smallest boat that had traveled the distance