People still show,
When the tide is low,
Where that new ship went ashore,
On that fearful night,
Near no beacon light,
'Mid the breakers' crash and roar.
Forty-five years
The Heavenly spheres
Have sped on their shining way,
Since one day at noon,
When there was no moon,
She left the Kennebunk bay.
The captain said
As he went ahead,
His "ship must sail that day;
Tho' the winds and wave
Might storm and might rave,
His ship should be on her way."
The clouds shut down
With a seeming frown,
That told of a coming storm;
And the south winds blew
As lost to their view,
Were their homes so snug and warm.
The winds shifts east
And the briny yeast
Is blown far unto the shore,
The ship with full sail
Is caught in the gale,
Her shrouds in ribbons it tore.
No one can go
For the blinding snow
Up aloft to reef the sail;
And the surging deep
Seems ever to leap
Into mountains in the gale.
In vain they shout
And try to "about"
Their ship in its mad career.
It is "pitchy dark"
And there's not a spark
To tell them which way to steer.
With sails all rent
The "Isadore" went
Straight on to the rocky reef,
Where no arm can save
From a watery grave,
And no life boat give relief.
O the anguish then
Of those fifteen men,
As they saw their horrible fate,
That they there must die
With kind friends so nigh,
All unconscious of their state.
At early dawn
On the coming morn
When their neighbors sought the shore,
They saw on the beach
Almost within reach
The wreck of the "Isadore."
And along the strand
On every hand
In death's cold and silent sleep,
Those sailors so true,
That Kennebunk crew
Were strewn by the angry deep.
Their spirits now free,
On a stormless sea
Are sailing forevermore;
And cables of love
Fast anchored above,
Still draw their friends to its shore.
