On the eighteenth of October we lay in Bantry Bay
All ready to set sail, with a fresh and steady gale
A fortnight and nine days we in the harbour lay
And no breeze ever reached us or strained a single sail
Three ships of war had we, and the great guns loaded all
But our ships were dead and beaten that had never feared a foe
The winds becalmed around us cared for no cannon ball
They locked us in the harbour and would not let us go
On the nineteenth of October, by eleven of the clock
The sky turned black as midnight and a sudden storm came on
Awful and sudden--and the cables felt the shock
Our anchors they all broke away and every sheet was gone
The guns fired off amid the strife, but little hope had we
The billows broke above the ship and left us all below
The crew with one consent cried "Bear further out to sea,"
But the waves obeyed no sailor's call, and we knew not where to go
She foundered on a rock, while we clambered up the shrouds
And staggered like a mountain drunk, wedged in the waves almost
The red hot boiling billows foamed in the stooping clouds
And in that fatal tempest the whole ship's crew were lost
Have pity for poor mariners, ye landsmen, in a storm
O think what they endure at sea while safe at home you stay
All ye that sleep on beds at night in houses dry and warm
O think upon the whole ship's crew, all lost at Bantry Bay