(No More) The Sub-Mariner Peter Hammill

[Verse 1]
In my youth, I played at trains:
Now all steam is gone
In my dreams, brief shelter from the rain
I try to catch the fireglow....
With Dinky Toys, I thought that I was Stirling
With cricket bat, I saw myself as Peter May;
Oh! Now, with all these images returning
I wonder who I am today?

[Verse 2]
As a child, I refought the war
With plastic planes and imagination:
I sank Tirpitz, blew up the Mohne dam, all these and more
I was the saviour of the Nation!
Oh! To be the captain of a ship of war!
The pilot of a Tempest or a York!
To hold my trench against the Panzer Korps
Instead of simply being one who talks
And reminisces of his fantasies
As though life was nothing but to lose...
These only antecede the knowledge that, eventually
He must choose

[Bridge]
It's a hallmark of adulthood
That our options diminish
As our faculties for choice increase
Till we choose everything and nothing
Too late, at the finish
(Ah, ah!)
(Ahh)
(Ah-ah-ah-ahh, ahh, ahh)
(Ah-ah-ah-ahh, ahh, ahh!)