Lyubov Orlava

There’s many the vagrant the ocean to sail
The shoals of the herring the lonely old whale
And the hull of the liner that’s tossed on the gale
The ghost ship Lyubov Orlava 

From the Yugoslav docks they launched her so proud 
‘Round to Vladivostok, the pride of the crowd
A Soviet starlet to Christen her bow
They sent her to sail the antarctic

But times wore along and the decades crept by
Her owners sold off when their debt was too high 
It was in St John’s Harbor they left her to die 
Abandoned, unmanned, and unwanted 

The Newfoundland sailors decided to pull
Her down to dominica to scrap up her hull 
But the sea claims her prize and the storm made the cull
And they lost her halfway down the seaboard 

Across the Atlantic the gulf stream does shift 
And past the green coastline of Britain it lifts
The boats that drop off her like orphans adrift
Are all that she leaves for her passing 

And now like a coffin she rocks on the foam 
The wind is her captain the wave is her home 
And the rats in her hull just quarrel and roam 
And their stomachs grow leaner and hungry 

She’ll wander no more by the antarctic shore 
Nor dance in the Kara or hear the north roar 
The rats and the gulls are her crew evermore 
Until the Atlantic reclaims her