The mapmaker's son had barely begun
    Am                 C
His drinking at the Chalice & Pew
    G               Em        Am
When he said, "Here's a story," and swore it was true
        Am                          C
To the very last word, as I tell it to you
       G         Em         Am

It seems that his mother had disappeared once
And it drove his old father quite mad
Who lost every penny of the family's funds
Recovering what he once had

[refrain:]
Oh, aye, the cartographer's wife!
C            G       D/F#   Em
None ever discovered so fair
C            Am         E7
From the breeze of her sigh,
         C                      
To the deeps of her  eye,
       G        D/F# Em
And her serpentine rivers of hair!
        Am         E7        Am

It came a surprise, some twelve years ago
During a mid-breakfast pause
The mapmaker sensed a strange absence about
And cursed, realizing its cause

He sent his assistant with half twenty pound,
A slice of black bread, and a map of the town
When evening arrived, and still she was lost
He said, "We shall find her, and devil take the cost!"

[refrain]

The assistant took sail, and sailed not a few leagues
And sought through the nights and the days
And stopped, in a city quite foreign indeed,
A man walking the opposite way

"Here, sir, 's a portrait my master did draw
He drew as he liked and he loved as he saw
He tells me to scour the world for her
Though I haven't much luck, sir, still I shall endure!"

[refrain]

The foreigner told the assistant to go
To an isle in the Aegean Sea
"On it," he said, "as ye seek, ye shall find
her there by an Aleppo tree"

The assistant observed his instructions with care 
And encountered her mistress, and gave a curt bow
The other then blushed, of the two women there
As one said, "At last, we've some privacy now..."

[refrain]