We sailed up a river as far as our draft would let us go
And anchored at a shallow bend where the current ran slow
I was left on watch aboard with the few hands we could spare
While most of the crew marched inland to find a city there
I could see a mountain through a glass far away
To where I knew the fourth wonder of the world lay
It was a city carved by hand out of a mountain face
Inhabited by its builders who were a peculiar race
Of traders and merchants living in luxury
Though they did not labor they were rich as they could be
They traded exotic products wherever they would roam
And their most valued goods were the coins that they brought home
They sent their caravans to every far off city
So the whole world added to their prosperity
The ancient city had been carved deep into the mountain stone
Behind ornate facades their wealth had slowly grown
From where I peered up at those carved streets and columns
I marveled at the complex hive a city often becomes
The sun shone bright every day on the red sand shore
And even the nights seemed warmer than any I'd known before
The priestess ventured out on deck as we lay anchored there
There were so few others around and no one seemed to care
We spent many hours talking of the lives we each had known
Though we had little in common except being alone
She said she had no other home that she could remember
Except the life she had in the temple where I'd found her
She grew up praying and looking to the great blue star above
And learning its sacred message of hope and peace and love
She said the blue star was a world filled with vast gardens and seas
Whose gardens were tended only by the animals and bees
Where everything that could be needed grew there close at hand
And every fruit and vine grew wild in that fertile land
It was the destiny she said for one man chosen to go
To live on that world when the end came to the world we know
And she had recognized me from the prophecies she heard
That I was the one to whom those prophecies referred
And she had chanted the words she'd waited all her life to speak
To bless me and to curse me with her spell, that I would seek
Forever to be free of the destructive path I'd chosen
And to be somehow sent to the blue star, to be frozen
In the void between worlds for a time and then
To land in a strange place to begin life once again
Her words were like music that rested on my ear
I could not believe anything I could hear
But as I listened to her hour after hour
Her voice became as soothing as a summer shower
Too soon the crew returned to the ship again
Carrying in large boxes the riches they had taken
All the coins and silks and tapestries and furniture
Made of finest woods and clothing made of fur
No more could be carried from the high city that day
We loaded all these things aboard and sailed away