Irony

They beat you here by six days
You only stayed a few weeks
and then headed off
never to be seen again
Louis asked after you
just before he was executed

Well, so it's rumoured

Bad karma had followed you
to the Antipodes
The stench of blood and mayhem
back home rode on the wind's back
attaching itself as a flag
to your ship

Something made you leave
Britain's Devils Island
in a hurry to sail to your doom
Nobody knows why
Nobody is certain of what happened

A sixteen year old Corsican wanted
to join your crew but was rejected
Imagine how different the world would be
if you had accepted him
Then again imagine how different
things would be if you had got here
six days earlier

Oh and what about that aspiring painter
The pale watery blue eyed German
who was prevented from entering the Academy in Vienna
If he had been accepted
That probably would have made a difference too
But you wouldn't know about that
It was more than a century later
So what do you make of all of this
Monsieur le Comte de La Perouse