The leading lights of the age all wondered among themselves what I would do next
After all that I'd found in my circles 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 Maria my beautiful Annabel Lee
That spring we set sail and the crowd waved from shore and on board the sailors waved caps
But I'd never had family just the Annabel Lee so I never had cause to look back
I just studied the charts set the course north 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
After that all around us was vastness one glassy desert of arsenic 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
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 ice 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 unheard tropical bird
And I smile in my sleep
Thinking Annabel Lee's finally made it to the top of the world
Yeah sometimes at night in my dreams comes the singing of some unheard tropical bird
And I smile in my sleep thinking Annabel Lee's finally found another new world