- The Humane Society

Words: Dillon Bustin
Tune: Dillon Bustin

Come, listen to the news
Of the City of Columbus and her pleasure cruise
To Florida from Boston sailed
Smack into a winter’s gale
With freezing rain and frozen hail

And, at the Gay Head light,
The keeper there awoke to face a fearsome sight
On Devil’s Bridge she’d run aground
The breakers playing lost and found
With the drowning and the drowned.

And he sent out a plea,
To the worthy men of the Humane Society,
The call went out both loud and clear
To us, lifesaving volunteers.
And I could see my duty clear.

My boots left on the ice,
The socks my mother knitted me they would suffice
Don’t need my boots to weigh me down
If it is my day to drown
My brother there could use the pair.

Six men to a boat,
The call to pull away it came as from one throat
As if one hand did time the oars
Our backs turned to the ocean’s roar,
The surf did throw us back once more

Our steersman gave a shout:
Each able bodied man to leap right out
Heave the boat along the side
Force her though the surging tide.
Soaked to the skin, we launched her in

And froze up to our necks,
We rowed for love of life out to that sinking wreck
Some were lashed onto the mast,
Some in the rigging holding fast,
Praying not to be the last.

And, how to understand
These gentlemen who do not shake an Indian’s hand?
To meet on any other day
Would not have one word to say
Were reaching out as they did pray.

Some twenty-nine we saved
One hundred three did perish beneath the waves
The bloated bodies of the dead
Washed on the beaches of Gay Head
Like stranded whales to no avail.

Now, we’re heroic men,
With medals and with money for our courage then
The centuries most tragic wreck
The rescued ones do not suspect,
We do it for our self respect.

lifeboats