Another New World

The leading lights of the age
All wondered amongst themselves what I would do next
After all that I'd found in my travels around the world
Was there anything left?
"Gentlemen," I said, "I've studied the maps
And if what I'm thinking is right
There's another new world at the top of the world
For whoever can break through the ice"

I looked round the room
In that way I once had
And I saw that they wanted belief
So, I said, "All I got are my guts and my God"
Then I paused, "And the Annabelle Lee"
Oh, the Annabelle Lee, I saw their eyes shine
The most beautiful ship in the sea
My Nina, my Pinta, my Santa Maria
My beautiful Annabelle Lee

That spring I set sail
As the crowd waved from shore
And on board the crew waved their hands
But I never had family, just the Annabelle Lee
So, I'd never had cause to look back
I just set the course north and I studied the charts
And towards dark, I drifted toward sleep
And I dreamed of the fine, deep harbor I'd find
Past the ice for my Annabelle Lee

After that it got colder
And the world got quiet
It was never quite day or quite night
And the sea turned the color of sky
Turned the color of sea
Turned the color of ice
'Til at last all around us was fastness
One vast, glassy desert of arsenic white
And the waves that once lifted us
Sifted instead into drifts against Annabelle's sides

And the crew gathered closer
At first for the comfort
But each morning would bring a new set
Of the tracks in the snow leading over the edge
Of the world 'til I was the only one left
And after that it gets cloudy
But it feels like I laid there
For days and maybe for months
But Annabelle held me, the two of us happy
Just to think back on all we had done

We talked of the other worlds we'd discover
As she gave up her body to me
And as I chopped up her mainsail for timber
I told her of all that we still had to see
And as the frost turned her moorings to ninetail
And the wind lashed her sides in the cold
I burned her to keep me alive every night
In the loving embrace of her hold

I won't call it rescue what brought me here back to
The old world to drink and decline
And pretend that the search for another new world
Was well worth the burning of mine
But sometimes at night
In my dreams comes the singing
Of some unknown tropical bird
And I smile in my sleep, thinking Annabelle Lee
Has finally made it to another new world

Yeah, sometimes at night
In my dreams comes the singing
Of some unknown tropical bird
And I smile in my sleep, thinking Annabelle Lee
Has finally made it to another new world