The Boat That Did Not Come Back (Ernest Shackleton)

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
The ship
got stuck in the ice
in the Weddell Sea
and you watched it
get crushed
over ten months
the way a fist
crushes a walnut
if the fist
is patient
and the walnut
is a three-masted
barquentine
named Endurance
and you named it
Endurance
and the name
tasted like
the frozen
fish-oil dark
of a promise
you had made
to twenty-seven men
who believed you
about the name.

[Verse 2]
You got
every man
off the ship
onto the ice
onto the boats
onto an island
that was wrong
and then
into the smallest boat
with five men
and sailed
eight hundred miles
of open Antarctic ocean
to the island
that had
a whaling station
because the whaling station
was the only
telephone
within a thousand miles
of the place
your men
were eating penguin
and waiting
for you
and the waiting
had the heavy
wet wool weight
of a trust
that has not
been given
a reason
to stop.

[Chorus]
You came back.
That is
the whole story.
The boat
should not
have made it.
The ocean
should not
have let it.
The whaling station
should not
have been open
that week.
You should not
have crossed
the mountains
without gear
in the dark.
But you did
all four
and every man
was alive
because they
had not
for one second
doubted
you were
coming back.

[Outro]
The ad
in the London paper —
*small wages,
bitter cold,
safe return doubtful* —
is probably
apocryphal
but every man
who applied
got
exactly
what was advertised
except
the last part
because you
made the last part
wrong
and the wrong
is the only part
of the ad
anyone
remembers.

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