Poetry Journal Songs
1. The legend lives on from the Chippawa on down
2. of the big lake they call Gichegumme
3. the lake it is said
4. never gives up her dead
5. when the skys of November turn gloomy.
6. With a load of iron ore, 26,000 ton more,
7. than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty.
8. That good ship and crew were bound to be chewed,
9. when the gales of November came early.
10. The ship was the pride of the American side,
11. coming back from some mill in Wisconsin.
12. As the big freighters go it was bigger than most,
13. with a crew and good captain well seasoned.
14. Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
15. when they left fully loaded from Cleveland.
16. And later that night when the ships bell rang
17. could it be the north wind they'd been feeling?
18. The wind and the wires made a tattle-tale sound,
19. when a wave broke over the railing.
20. And every man knew as the captain did to,
21. it was the witch of November come stealing.
22. The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait,
23. when the gales of November came slashing.
24. And when afternoon came it was freezing rain
25. in the face of a hurricane westwind.
26. And when suppertime came,
27. the old cook came on deck saying fellows its to rough to feed ya.
28. At seven p.m. the main hatch way gave in ,
29. he said fellows it's been good to know ya.
30 The captain wired in he had water coming in,
31. and the good ship and crew were in peril.
32. And later that night when his lights went out of sight,
33. came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
34. Does anyone know where the love of God goes,
35. when the waves turn the minutes into hours?
36. The searchers all say they would have made Whitefish Bay
37. if they'd put 15 more miles behind her.
38. They might have split up, or they might have capsized,
39. They may have grove deep and took water,
40. and all that remains is the faces, and names,
41. of the wives, sons, and the daughters.
42. Lake Huron rolls, Lake Superior sings
43. in the rooms of her ice water mansions.
44. Old Michigan steams like a young mans dreams,
45. the islands and the bays are for sportsman.
46. Farther below Lake Ontario
47. takes in what Lake Erie can send her.
48. And the iron boasts go as the mariners all know,
49. with the gales of November remembered.
50. In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed,
51. in the maritime sailors cathedral.
52. The church bell chimed, it rang 29 times,
53. For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by: Gordon Lightfoot