| lyric | Now you may bless your happy lot that live secure on shore,
Safe from the tempest and the blast that round poor seamen roar.
It’s little you know the hradships that we were forded to stand,
For fourteen days and fourteen nights on the Bankd of Newfoundland.
Our ood ship never crossed before the stormy western waves;
The ashing seas came tossing down and broke her into staves,
She was built of green, unseasoned wood, and could but little stand,
The hurricane that met us on the Banks of Newfoundland.
We had Barney Lynch from Ballynahinch, Tim Sweeny and Mike Moore;
We pawned our clothes in Liverpool in Eighteen forty—four;
We pawned our clothes in Liverpool and sold them out of hand
Nor thought of the cold nor’wester on the Banks of Newfoundland.
The ice fell down in torrent: , from the time we left Quebec,
Unless we’d walk within our shoes we’d be frozen on the deck.
We were stout, hardy Irish boys that our good ship did man,
And the captain doubled each man’s grub on the Banks of Newfoundland.
The gale it blew from sunset till we sailed three mornings’ dawn,
And when she fell to lee-ward two of our masts were gone.
We lashed ourselves to the mizen yardsfand ’twas then we verily planned,
To show some signals of distress on the Banks of Newfoundland.
If you were to see us famishing, your heart would feel the pain;
For out of two and twenty, eleven did remain.
Some jumped in earnest in the seas and said they’d swim to land;
But alas, we were one hundred leagues from the shore of Newfoundland.
We fasted, boys, for five long days, our provisions being all out;
And on the morning of the sixth we cast the lot about.
The lot fell on the captain’s son, but thinking relief at hand,
We spared him for another day on the Banks of Newfoundland.
No sail appeared next morning and the captain’s son prepared; We gave him another hour, for to offer up a prayer,
When boundless Providence roved kind, and from blood saved every man;
An English vessel have in sig t on the Banks of Newfoundland.
When we were taken from the wreck, we were more like ghosts than men;
They fed us and they clothed us, and brought us home again.
And our dear friends, that lost their lives, they ne’er saw the Irish land,
For the raging waves roll o'er their graves on the Banks of Newfoundland.
’Twas on the seventh of January, this disaster it took place;
It would rend the heart of adamant, and of those that hear their fate.
For eleven of our gallant boys those hardships could not stand.
May Our Saviour’s mercy reach their souls on the Banks of Newfoundland. |