Wednesday 14 November 2007

SS Waratah

Out from Australia steamed SS Waratah
Cross the Pacific her stack belching smoke
Two hundred souls and eleven aboard her
Passenger travellers and sea-faring folk

Below Madagascar she steamed into Durban
SS Waratah of Blue Anchor Line
Over her smoke trail the gulls - in abandon
flew calling of jetsam at sea - mighty fine

Her captain one Josiah Ilberry shuddered
He said she was tender not stiff in the seas
When the waves hit her her stem-to-stern shuddered
She struggled to right herself struggled to please

The ship was in port for supply and more fuel
And people admiringly said she was grand
They had no fore-knowledge of how she would struggle
Where Argulies Current swept round Durban land

The Clan Macintyre - near the Bashee Coast - saw her
Bound out for Capetown then Britain she was
When the storm hit her it sank her and beat her
She fell down a hole in the ocean because

When the waves roar down the Mozambique Channel
Sixty-six foot waves rage right overhead
Sunk in the troughs are the holes in the ocean
SS Waratah lies all her souls dead

SS Waratah for Britain would never
pass where the Zora mouth pours to the sea
Think of her sailors and passengers ever
Lost to the Black Hole - sunk under the sea

2000 © Charlotte Peters Rock

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