the life and times of yallery brown

Mooncussers we are – a coastal clan
The local heroes who fear not the excise man
Some call us wreckers, but how dashing, dark and daring
The Smugglers’ Inn is where we take our bearings

You can find me by night in the alleys and caves
My skirts tied up, in my stocking my blade
Bringing the goods by the light of the moon
A smuggler born and a smuggler maid

We can bring you fine wool or wine from belle France
Brandy or rum for your coin in advance
We are romanticised in song and in verse
We’ll defy king and country in return for your purse

Sails aback, the boats row out
Pulling hard from a darkened shore
The clink of a coin in the black of night
The glimpse of a smile by a shaded light
Brandy and tea, whisky and wool
We load them quickly, pull boys pull

My father was a smuggler, my grandfather before
It’s the family business, we’re smugglers to the core
Some say that we are godless, but who are they to judge
For I’m a smuggler’s daughter and smuggling’s in my blood

Music & Lyrics © Yallery Brown, 2021

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake, and no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, so haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full, and the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow, with anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose, fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads, full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light, and her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head, and bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love, and made sweet moan

I set her on my pacing steed, and nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing a faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet, and honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said—‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her Elfin grot, and there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes with kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep, and there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dreamt on the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too, pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci thee hath in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam, with horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here, on the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here, alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake, and no birds sing.

Music © Yallery Brown, 2021. Lyrics from a poem by John Keats.