A day on a steamship
and your feet grow webs
and at first your eyeballs
roll round in your head

So little wonder
once you come back ashore
the rocking wind yet
can stir up the oars

Especially as long
as we'd been out to sky
Arrested from land
and shackled so high

Beholding now a familiar scene
still indeed, seemed a dream
For no two trips were ever the same
visiting the home of professor James

The clockwork hills of copper bent
and always shifting with power lent
from a belly of fire far below
and covered in clouds: a steamy show

An engine bright and on rails
made the endless circle of trails
Yet each one shifted every time
as different as the professor's mind

The doorman awaited at the gate
as we approached uncertain fate
Doctor James was in a sling
that we carried like some holy thing

His body a wreck
His eyes sharp as tacks
He pointed us forward
and never looked back

Calling for his physician
indeed on a mission
We left him there in his sores
behind the old tarnished doors

I pondered if chance
were in the mood to recant
the death sentence declared
At the edge of despair

Tin-cat toy paced with me
every time I wound its key
Hours we carved into that floor
Never had I been this worried before

On the isle not far from the place
was a water hole by a steeplechase
with the best rum found at the time
I decided to wash my nervous mind

Daft as a door-mouse
with rusted rings
I was doused to my eyeballs
and had busted my springs

My open mouth carried
a word shrill and set
till it brought down the ire
of old-timer Ted

Now surely that surly
ripe son-of-a-gun
never minded his business
when he had none

Square in the jaw
and crooked of teeth
He made an odd whistle
whenever he breathed

The tin-punched fool
always looked for a fight
Gifted as he was at losing his cool
immediately felt the timing was right

My blurry stupor
of missteps swayed
I missed his fist
but the bar hit my face

Last I remember
as the floor slipped below
was the familiar sound
of a voice that I know