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Ballad Of The Great Eastern
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1
In 18 hundred and 59, the engineer Brunel,
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Would build the greatest ship afloat, and rule the ocean's swell.
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Nineteen thousand tons of steel they used to shape the mighty keel,
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Forged inside the smelter where they made the gates of Hell...
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And the name upon the contract, Isambard Brunel.
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As day-by-day the monster grew, the engineer Brunel,
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Would watch the devil's handiwork, and woe betide a man who shirks,
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Or slows the pace to build the keel, 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, 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 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, 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 and all the townsfolk cheered,
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A brass band played but not a word of omens they had feared,
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But before the afternoon was out, 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 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, they hadn't even seen the worst,
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They'd signed on able-bodied men, 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, 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, unseal the double hull,
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The breakers call the foreman o'er, they'd found a human skull.
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And then they find the younger man, perforced to understand,
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That in the hour of their torment, 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, 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, the contract signed in Hell,
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Was the same as on the draftsman's chart...one Isambard Brunel.
Sting - Fields Of Gold
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