DESCRIPTION:
This is a new ballad written and sung by my brother Andrew, for the 160th anniversary of the wreck of the HMS Birkenhead in 1852. Mr. Charlie Zahm sang it at the 100th anniversary Titanic commemoration with Vision Forum in Branson.
Lyrics:
The Gallant Birkenhead

by Andrew R.

There was nary the clap of a sailor's tread
On the decks of the gallant Birkenhead
Save our wake there was scarce a sound in the dead
Of the night that summer's eve;
All was peace and calm upon sea
As our sturdy troopship made her way
On the passage to Algoa Bay
Where our load we would relieve.

Well at two in the morn I was on the bow,
And I heard our proud ship smoothly plow
Through the rippling waters down below,
When the calm all swiftly fled;
For a shudder tore through the shiv'ring hull
And it felt just like a sword in my soul,
To hear that sound like thunder roll
The knell of the Birkenhead!

Some perished when she struck that rock,
But who survived the early shock,
All hurried on the heaving deck
To see what they might do,
And what a sight would meet their eye
The ship in perfect disarray,
You could hear her grind and groan away,
And you knew that she was through.

Old Seton, a man of gallant worth
Was commander of the Seventy-fourth
He a stout and sturdy son of the North,
Drew his shining Highland sword.
And he told the men to fall in line
While the lifeboats fell on the ocean brine
Then he turned his head, and with a sign
Bade the wives and children board.

As they swiftly bade their last farewell
The ship began to fiercely roll,
And she broke upon the rocky shoals
As the lifeboats made away.
While there in rank we sternly stood
Upon us came the rising flood,
And many a man kept with his blood,
The law of chivalry.

Some swam to reach the hopeful shore,
Some perished first in crimson gore,
And some will ne'er be heard of more
When History's page is read;
Though how they died, God only knows,
Yet still their honor brightly glows,
While in death's embrace they sleep below,
With the gallant Birkenhead.

(c) 2012 Cross and Resurrection Music


Once upon a time, practically every schoolchild in America and Britain knew the story of the courageous manhood displayed in this naval disaster. Nowadays, the story is pretty scarcely known, however.

Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Birkenhead_(1845) for this amazing and inspiring story of valor and chivalry in the face of death.