Lyrics

1. Now the grief messages tell 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.
and fame and glory
one aimed to reap with it.

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

4. On Sunday of April
at ten o’clock in the evening,
even though the guards were standing,
on the ship’s bridge.

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

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

7. The machines of the ship stopped,
water flowed inside,
and the passengers by a horrible
disarray were possessed.

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

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

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

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

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

13. One thousand six hundred people
sea’s waves killed
and all the money and goods
sunk with it. 

14. One thousand six hundred people
were at least saved,
and all the money and goods
also was left there with them*.

Source: Asplund 1994, pp. 782-783.
Collector: Ulla Lipponen.
Year: 1968.