Erebus and Terror Lyrics


VERSE 1

We set our sails beneath a bleeding sun,

Two beasts of oak, our voyage just begun.

A call to chart, the passage speaks our name,

Glory or grave, we chase a fleeting fame.

The skies were steel, yet hearts were forged in fire,

The Crown compelled ambition climbing higher.

I felt the breath of winter’s sharpened tongue,

But laughed at ghosts that wiser sailors sung.

PRECHORUS 1

Frozen sky

Bleeding sun

Crown of fire

Ice will reign

CHORUS

FIGHT... a chance to

SURVIVE... their souls kept

ALIVE... while sanity wavers

SEA... a frozen

DISEASE... they fall to

THEIR KNEES... praying for saviours

VERSE 2

We cursed the storm as breakers shrouded sky,

Entombed in white, we watched the hours die.

The timbers groaned, the howling winds conspire,

Our bodies waned, devoured by the mire.

The sea withdrew, it left no trace behind,

Just hollow silence gnawing at the mind.

I carved my plea into frostbitten bone,

The wind replied in tongues I’d never known.

PRECHORUS 2

Creaking wood

Flesh for food

Through howling winds

Brothers fall

CHORUS

FIGHT... a chance to

SURVIVE... their souls kept

ALIVE... while sanity wavers

SEA... a frozen

DISEASE... they fall to

THEIR KNEES... praying for saviours

NARRATION

May twenty-eighth, eighteen forty-seven.

All well.

Sir John Franklin in command.

We expect passage at summer break-up.

MIDDLE 8

Cracking ice

Deadlocked hull

Forward nevermore

Timbers groan

Blackened skies

Three-thousand miles from home

VERSE 3

Now I march through snow with hollow eyes,

Beneath a sun that mocks in ashen skies.

We feast on fallen, drinking melted snow,

Each step resounds a torment none should know.

No rescue comes, no guiding star to chart,

Just endless white to freeze our failing hearts.

Our souls erased, the frost becomes our knell,

Our fate lies frozen in this Arctic hell.

PRECHORUS 3

Hellish cold

Hollow eyes

Endless white

All are damned

CHORUS

FIGHT... a chance to

SURVIVE... their souls kept

ALIVE... while sanity wavers

SEA... a frozen

DISEASE... they fall to

THEIR KNEES... praying for saviours

END

Sun bleeds again on their desolate trail,

Two beasts surrender, no engines, no sails.

The passage denies them as ice closes in,

Glory decayed, they lose sight of the fame.

Their hearts now of steel where a fire once burned,

The Crown counts the days for their heroes' return.

Erebus and Terror dragged down through the mire,

One hundred and twenty-nine met their demise.