VERSE 1 Rain like musket-fire, night black as the hold, The Black Serpent lunges with a heart of oak and gold. Through walls of water roaring, through the tempest’s iron cry, She hunts the prison lightning where a chained daughter lies. CHORUS (full chorus, fortissimo) Heave, oh, heave through the thunder’s roar! Reef the sails and haul for war! Blood and brine upon the deck, The Serpent strikes; no turning back! For a sister lost, for a father’s vow, We chase the gale and we take her now! VERSE 2 Greg at the rail, salt in his beard like frost, A ball in his thigh still burning from the cost. His voice a cannon cracking o’er the wheelman’s straining hands, “Keep her nose to the devil, lads; the storm is our command!” CHORUS Heave, oh, heave through the thunder’s roar! Death may grin, but we grin more! Wave and wind may tear us blind, Yet kin calls kin through the howling mind! BRIDGE (tenors and basses, almost spoken over racing strings) Josh aloft where the mast would fling him down, Fingers bleeding, laughing at the drowning town of waves below. Breezy hauls the line with fire in her eyes, Every knot a promise: “Mikayla shall not die.” VERSE 3 Lanterns of the French like corpse-lights on the foam, La Foudre rolls heavy, dragging chains far from home. Closer, closer carves the Serpent, shadow through the rain, Till the grapple kisses timber and the cutlass screams again. ORCHESTRAL STORM BREAK (brass and timpani in savage ascent, violins shrieking like rigging in the gale) FINAL CHORUS (whole company, exultant and ferocious) Strike, oh, strike in the hurricane’s heart! Steel for steel till the chains fall apart! Father, son, and daughters twain, We are the tempest, we are the chain, We are the Serpent, we are the storm; Tonight a family is reborn! Through the squall and the iron night, We carry thunder, we carry light. For Tortuga’s hearth and the blood we share, No king, no chain, no god shall dare! Blow, ye winds; blow wild and free— The sea itself sings victory!
