Lyrics

The Crew Twenty-four hours on the Cliff.

Ye daring sailor boys attend
To these few lines I pen,
And hear of the terrible sufferings
Of fourteen shipwrecked men;
Upon the coast of Newfoundland,
This barque she came to grief,
Upon the rocks of Ferryland
She ran in on a reef.

This barque she sailed from Sweden,
Bound on for Miramichi,
She carried a crew of fourteen hands
To cross the Western sea.
She had no cargo in her hold,
In ballast she did leave,
While sailors sang as sailors can
And the anchor up did heave.

She met rough weather on the Voyage,
And storms most every day,
Her topsail, jib and spanker
It soon was blown away.
The second of May the wind did Veer,
But still the sea ran high,
Each wave was breaking o’er the sail,
Her decks were never dry.

While making in near Ferryland
She ran upon a reef,
The Alku pounded on the rocks
And quickly came to grief;
Three sailors ran out on the boom
And saw she was no more,
Leaped for the rock with line in hand,
The crew to help on shore.

The crew got safely on the rock
Just at the dawn of day,
And huddled in the cliff for hours,
Those seamen had to stay.
The stalwart sons of Ferryland,
In boats the storm did brave,
They took the seamen from the cliff
And every soul did save.

Citation:
Old Home Week Songster: Terra Nova’s Kind Welcome to her Sons and Daughters (Newfoundland: Herald Job Print, 1904), 60-61.