Lyrics

Come all ye sons of Newfoundland
And shed a tear or two,
While I relate the hardships great
Befell this steamship’s crew;
Upon the thirty-first of March,
That sad and fatal night,
The Newfoundland’s bold hardy crew
Got lost upon the ice.

The strong men bowed beneath His grasp,
The youthful head bent low,
To Him who rolls the storm along
And cheers the weary soul;
When dawning broke on Thursday morn
The storm it did abate,
And nearly eighty sons of toil
Upon the floe lay dead.

About one o’clock that evening
A gale came on to blow,
Which afterward was followed,
By blinding drift and snow;
Methinks I can imagine some
How they sat down and wept,
While others fought until the end
With the Grim Reaper Death.

Oh Newfoundland! Oh Newfoundland,
Who mourn your noble dead,
Who often trod the frozen pans,
And from it wrung their bread;
Now in this hour of deep, deep gloom
Combine and do your best,
To ease the ones now left to mourn
The wife and fatherless.

It must have been a ghastly sight
To see him going past,
The monster Death upon the ice
To form his gruesome task;
And as the night wore slowly on
The wind with fury blew,
His icy hand was laid on some
Who formed that gallant crew.

No more their footsteps shall be heard
Those true and faithful dead,
No more we’ll gaze upon their face
As ofttimes ‘fore we did;
Their names will live in history
And hang on memory’s wall,
As true born British heroes
Who died at duty’s call.

Lyrics from GEST Songs of Newfoundland and Labrador.