The Crew of the HMS Terror by Jessica Law Lyrics

Distant figures
Eight or nine out on the ice
Drawing nearer
Ghostly thin and deathly white

Not a glimmer
In their gaunt and haunted eyes
Dead men walking, or spirits
What choice have we but to retreat and to hide?

And wait inside and hope they'll go
Yet hear their footsteps in the snow
Come louder, louder, loud and close

Then a braver
Man than I stepped out to find
Wraith-like creatures
Cold of skin and dead of mind

Food we offеred
Would not eat and would not trade
Would not spеak a word
On their grim death march into the waste, so we made
An igloo for them all to sleep
And left for them three seals to eat
And silently, silently fled when night came

Seasons came and went
We returned one day to search
Objects we had left
In our haste to flee the curse

Why had they arrived?
Would their coming spell our doom?
Captured in the ice, we found
That the igloo we built had provided their tomb

And they had left the seals alone
But they had feasted on their own
With human teeth marks on human bone

What line divides survival and sin?
What point does life depart and death creep in?
What line between a man and a beast?
Starving in the land on which we feast
Starving in the land on which we feast