Thanks to Fr Seán Coyle who posted a comment on an earlier post and reminded me of this lovely song. Seán thinks The Dutchman may have Alzheimer’s Disease (Liam Clancy thinks it’s more like shell-shocked). Whatever the cause, the old man needs a bit of patience, love and kindness and he’s not denied his needs. God bless all the “Margarets” out there who patch the old and torn with love-sewn threads.
LYRICS
http://www.allthelyrics.com/lyrics/tommy_makem/the_dutchman-lyrics-1130918.html#ixzz4Nu9VhzXC
The dutchman’s not the kind of man
To keep his thumb jammed in the dam that holds his dreams in
But that’s a secret only Margaret knows
When Amsterdam is golden
In the morning Margaret brings him breakfast, she believes him
He thinks the tulips bloom beneath the snow
He’s mad as he can be, but Margaret only sees that sometimes
Sometimes she sees her unborn children in his eyes
Chorus:
Let us go to the banks of the ocean
Where the walls rise above the Zider Zee
Long ago, I used to be a young man
And dear Margaret remembers that for me
The dutchman still wears wooden shoes
His cap and coat are patched with love that Margaret sewed in
Sometimes he thinks he’s still in Rotterdam
He watches tugboats down canals
And calls out to them when he thinks he knows the captain
‘Till Margaret comes to take him home again
Through unforgiving streets that trip him though she holds his arm
Sometimes he thinks that he’s alone and calls her name
The windmills swirl the winter in
As she winds his muffler tighter, they sit in the kitchen
And the tea with whiskey keeps away the dew
He sees her for a moment
Calls her name, she makes his bed up, humming some old love song
She learned it when the tune was very new
He hums a line or two, they hum together in the night
The dutchman falls asleep and Margaret blows the candle out