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Ballad of the Great Eastern - Sting |
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In 18 hundred and 59, the engineer Brunel, |
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Would build the greatest ship afloat, |
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and rule the ocean's swell. |
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Nineteen thousand tons of steel |
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they used to shape the mighty keel, |
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Forged inside the smelter where |
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they made the gates of Hell... |
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And the name upon the contract, |
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Isambard Brunel. |
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As day-by-day the monster grew, |
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the engineer Brunel, |
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Would watch the devil's handiwork, |
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and woe betide a man who shirks, |
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Or slows the pace to build the keel, |
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nineteen thousand tons of steel, |
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Anyone with eyes to see is but a bride of Hell, |
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And the name upon the draftsman's chart, Isambard Brunel. |
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A riveter was on the hull with his apprentice lad, |
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He'd served his time with the older man, |
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some say it was his dad. |
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200 men upon the shift but when the day is done, |
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The count is hundred 98...before the setting sun, |
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They searched the yard |
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all through the night until the morning bell, |
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No more delays are countenanced by Isambard Brunel, |
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And so they work a double shift, |
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to make the time in full, |
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No mention of the missing men...they seal the double hull. |
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The ship was launched upon the tide |
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and all the townsfolk cheered, |
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A brass band played |
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but not a word of omens they had feared, |
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But before the afternoon was out, |
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the celebration wrecked, |
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A dignitary clutched his heart...and collapsed upon the deck. |
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No doctors could revive him |
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as the telegraphs would tell, |
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And the name upon the coffin...Isambard Brunel. |
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And now upon the open sea, the mighty ship did plough, |
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But many feared the darkness, in the shadow of its prow. |
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An explosion on the lower deck, would take the souls of five, |
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With a growing superstition 'mong the sailors still alive. |
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The captain and his boy are lost while rowing to the shore, |
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The crew will threaten mutiny and say they'll work no more, |
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They began to say the ship was cursed, |
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they hadn't even seen the worst, |
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They'd signed on able-bodied men, |
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but they wouldn't sail to Hell... |
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When the name upon the manifest is Isambard Brunel. |
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For 14 years that ship will sail, |
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misfortune taken hard, |
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The owners barely find a crew to reach the breakers' yard. |
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And as they take the plates apart, |
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unseal the double hull, |
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The breakers call the foreman o'er, |
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they'd found a human skull. |
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And then they find the younger man, |
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perforced to understand, |
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That in the hour of their torment, |
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he'd reached his father's hand. |
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In 18 hundred and 59, the engineer Brunel, |
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Would build the greatest ship afloat, |
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and rule the mighty swell. |
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The final shift was over, and the breakers' hammers fell, |
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And the name upon the manifest, |
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the contract signed in Hell, |
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Was the same as on the draftsman's chart...one Isambard Brunel. |
