Lyrics

1. Again a grief message tells it
from the waves of the Atlantic,
that a ship there sunk,
took the lives of many.

2. It was the biggest ship in the world,
a giant, they said.
Fame and glory
one aimed to reap with it.

3. But fate knew it different,
it was cruel, horrendous.
It commanded: You will be faced
by an enormous accident.

4. When its first journey
the gallant ship started,
then on the open sea of the Atlantic
it reached an iceberg.

5. On Sunday of April
at ten o’clock in the evening,
even though the officers were standing,
it is told, on the ship’s bridge.

6. So too late it was noticed
an iceberg ahead,
that was swimming freely
in the Atlantic’s water.

7. The speed of the ship to stop
they tried with the ship’s big machines,
but it slashed forward
with its own power.

8. And a fatal collision
resulted at once,
so that the ship’s steely side
the iceberg crushed.

9. The machines of the ship stopped,
water flowed inside,
and the passengers by horror
and disarray were possessed.

10. Boats were lowered to water,
women, children to boats.
Came with horror also bitterness,
that touched hearts.

11. All the passengers did not fit
into the ship’s lifeboats,
instead they had to stay in the ship
and die in the depths.

12. Seven hundred were saved
from the danger of death
from the ship that sunk
to the deep sea’s bottom.

13. When the ship started to sink,
it set off agony’s cries.
In front of eyes death
its cold hand extended.

14. Music of the ship played
the last death’s anthem
to those who wandered
towards the eternal home.

15. One thousand six hundred people
sea’s waves killed
and lots of money goods
sunk with the ship.

16. Those passengers from all
the world’s ends were.
They luck perhaps to gather
had left for promised land.

17. But commanded fate thus
horrible unbeatable.
One cannot avoid its blows,
it is always untouchable.

18. Passengers there were also
children of Finland’s land,
when like this were killed
and ended up in Underworld.

19. Them mothers, fathers cry,
perhaps bridegrooms, fiancées,
and sadness, deep bitterness
suffocates hearts.

20. It is felt by the many who miss,
the relatives loved ones,
when one remembers common bygones
dear lived times.

Source: Asplund 1994, pp. 768-769.
Collector: Niilo V. Vallenius
Year: 1913.