First line: Of all the dreadful shipwrecks we ever yet did hear
Of all the dreadful shipwrecks we ever yet did hear,
The like of this could surely never be,
The London sailed from England, bound for a foreign shore,
Twenty thousand miles across the stormy sea.
Chorus: She sailed from London town and arrived in Plymouth Sound
All hearts were both lightsome and glee,
Oh the stormy winds did blow in the Bay of Biscay
And she sank to the bottom of the sea.
On board the London steam when the river she sailed down,
She had persons two hundred and eight-nine,
Unto the port of Melborne in Australia she was bound,
Friends and kindred in grief they left behind.
From Plymouth they did sail and there soon arose a gale,
so tremendious (sic) the stormy winds did blow,
She was on the billows tossed, two hundred and seventy were lost,
That day in the Bay of Biscay O.
Sad was the piercing cries that ascended to the skies,
When before them appeared a watery grave;
All in a little boat, on boiling surge did float,
Nineteen who by providence was saved.
Captain Martin, like a man, on the broken decks did stand,
Striving all that he could the ship to save,
When the seas run mountains high, he determined was to die,
with his passengers and crew in the waves.
Gallant Brooks the great actor, did struggle like a man,
And a brave gallant sailor was he,
With the Captain he died while the seas roared mountains high,
To weather the ship on the sea.
The ladies in despair, fell on their knees in prayer,
All calling on their Saviour then (sic) to save,
But that was not to be, but iin the bottom of the sea,
All met with a watery grave.
At length they was resigned when no prospect they could find,
To ever again reach the shore,
For death they did prepare, no aid or help was near,
And they sunk for to rise never more.
Can you for a moment feel, or can you e'er reveal,
When in a gale, what poor creatures undergo;
The London she went down, to Australia she was bound,
And she was lost in the Bay of Biscay O.
