Ballad Of The Great Eastern

In 18 hundred and 59 the engineer Brunel

Would build the greatest ship afloat and rule the ocean's swell

Nineteen thousand tons of steel they used to shape the mighty keel

Forged inside the smelter where they made the gates of Hell

And the name upon the contract Isambard Brunel

As day-by-day the monster grew the engineer Brunel

Would watch the devil's handiwork and woe betide a man who shirks

Or slows the pace to build the keel nineteen thousand tons of steel

Anyone with eyes to see is but a bride of Hell

And the name upon the draftsman's chart Isambard Brunel

A riveter was on the hull with his apprentice lad

He'd served his time with the older man some say it was his dad

200 men upon the shift but when the day is done

The count is hundred 98before the setting sun

They searched the yard all through the night until the morning bell

No more delays are countenanced by Isambard Brunel

And so they work a double shift to make the time in full

No mention of the missing menthey seal the double hull

The ship was launched upon the tide and all the townsfolk cheered

A brass band played but not a word of omens they had feared

But before the afternoon was out the celebration wrecked

A dignitary clutched his heartand collapsed upon the deck

No doctors could revive him as the telegraphs would tell

And the name upon the coffinIsambard Brunel

And now upon the open sea the mighty ship did plough

But many feared the darkness in the shadow of its prow

An explosion on the lower deck would take the souls of five

With a growing superstition 'mong the sailors still alive

The captain and his boy are lost while rowing to the shore

The crew will threaten mutiny and say they'll work no more

They began to say the ship was cursed they hadn't even seen the worst

They'd signed on able-bodied men but they wouldn't sail to Hell

When the name upon the manifest is Isambard Brunel

For 14 years that ship will sail misfortune taken hard

The owners barely find a crew to reach the breakers' yard

And as they take the plates apart unseal the double hull

The breakers call the foreman o'er they'd found a human skull

And then they find the younger man perforced to understand

That in the hour of their torment he'd reached his father's hand

In 18 hundred and 59 the engineer Brunel

Would build the greatest ship afloat and rule the mighty swell

The final shift was over and the breakers' hammers fell

And the name upon the manifest the contract signed in Hell

Was the same as on the draftsman's chartone Isambard Brunel