The Last Ship

It's all there in the Gospels

The Magdalene girl comes to pay her respects

But her mind is awhirl

When she finds the tomb empty

The stone had been rolled

Not a sign of a corpse in the dark and the cold

When she reaches the door, sees an unholy sight

There's this solitary figure in a halo of light

He just carries on, floating past Calvary Hill

In an almighty hurry, aye, but she might catch him still

"Tell me where are you going, Lord

And why in such haste?"

"Now don't hinder me, woman

I've no time to waste

For they're launching a boat on the 'morrow at noon

And I have to be there before daybreak"

"Oh, I cannot be missing, the lads'll expect me

Why else would the good Lord himself resurrect me?

For nothing'll stop me, I have to prevail

Through the teeth of this tempest, in the mouth of a gale

May the angels protect me if all else should fail

When the last ship sails"

Oh, the roar of the chains and the cracking of timbers

The noise at the end of the world in your ears

As a mountain of steel makes its way to the sea

And the last ship sails

It's a strange kind of beauty

It's cold and austere

And whatever it was that you've done to be here

It's the sum of your hopes, your despairs, and your fears

When the last ship sails

Well, the first to arrive saw these signs in the East

Like that strange moving finger at Balthazar's Feast

Where they asked the advice of some wandering priest

And the sad ghosts of men whom they'd thought long deceased

And whatever they got said, they'd be counted at least

When the last ship sails

Oh, the roar of the chains and the cracking of timbers

The noise at the end of the world in your ears

As a mountain of steel makes its way to the sea

And the last ship sails

And whatever you'd promised

Whatever you've done

And whatever the station in life you've become

In the name of the Father, in the name of the Son

And whatever the weave of this life that you've spun

On the Earth or in Heaven or under the sun

When the last ship sails