Another New World - Josh Ritter

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