The leading lights of the age all wondered among 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 am 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've got are my guts and my God," then I paused, "and the Annabel Lee."
Oh, the Annabel Lee, I saw their eyes shine, the most beautiful ship in the sea,
My Nina, my Pinta, my Santa María, my beautiful Annabel Lee...
That spring we set sail, and the crowd waved from shore, and on board the crew waved their hats,
But I'd never had family, just the Annabel Lee, so I 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 Annabel 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.
-- two versions:
(Tarrytown, 4/5/09:)
Till they last all around us was vastness, one glassy desert of a***nic white,
And the waves that once lifted us, shifted instead into drifts against Annabel's sides.
And the crew gathered closer, at first for the comfort, but each morning would bring a new set
Of tracks in the snow, leading over the edge of the world, til I was the only one left.
(San Francisco, 2/26/09:)
And as the going got slower, colder and colder, my crew drifted closer to me,
At first for the comfort, but then it was more like the icebergs rammed Annabel Lee
As the floes shrieked her hull, the shouting began, and a mast snapped off in the wind,
And I woke up much later, my crew disappeared, and they never were heard from again
--
After that it gets cloudy, but it feels like I laid there for days, or maybe for months
But Annabel held me, the two of us happy, just to think back on all we had done...
I told her {We talked...} of the other new worlds we'd discover as she gave up her body to me,
As I chopped up her mainsail for timber, I told her of all that we still had to see.
As the frost turned her moorings to nine-tails 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 can't {won't} call it rescue, what brought me back here to this old world to drink and decline,
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 Annabel Lee's finally made it to antoher new world.
Yeah, sometimes at night in my dreams comes the singing of some unknown tropical bird,
And I smile in my sleep, thinking Annabel Lee's finally made it to another new world.
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 am 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've got are my guts and my God," then I paused, "and the Annabel Lee."
Oh, the Annabel Lee, I saw their eyes shine, the most beautiful ship in the sea,
My Nina, my Pinta, my Santa María, my beautiful Annabel Lee...
That spring we set sail, and the crowd waved from shore, and on board the crew waved their hats,
But I'd never had family, just the Annabel Lee, so I 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 Annabel 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.
-- two versions:
(Tarrytown, 4/5/09:)
Till they last all around us was vastness, one glassy desert of a***nic white,
And the waves that once lifted us, shifted instead into drifts against Annabel's sides.
And the crew gathered closer, at first for the comfort, but each morning would bring a new set
Of tracks in the snow, leading over the edge of the world, til I was the only one left.
(San Francisco, 2/26/09:)
And as the going got slower, colder and colder, my crew drifted closer to me,
At first for the comfort, but then it was more like the icebergs rammed Annabel Lee
As the floes shrieked her hull, the shouting began, and a mast snapped off in the wind,
And I woke up much later, my crew disappeared, and they never were heard from again
--
After that it gets cloudy, but it feels like I laid there for days, or maybe for months
But Annabel held me, the two of us happy, just to think back on all we had done...
I told her {We talked...} of the other new worlds we'd discover as she gave up her body to me,
As I chopped up her mainsail for timber, I told her of all that we still had to see.
As the frost turned her moorings to nine-tails 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 can't {won't} call it rescue, what brought me back here to this old world to drink and decline,
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 Annabel Lee's finally made it to antoher new world.
Yeah, sometimes at night in my dreams comes the singing of some unknown tropical bird,
And I smile in my sleep, thinking Annabel Lee's finally made it to another new world.