From the sheet music at Johns Hopkins University:


THE TERRIBLE TEXAS STORM
"A beautiful song portraying in words and music the awful calamity at Texas, Sept. 8th, 1900."
Words & music by Thomas J. Kelly, ©1900.

[1] The sun was brightly shining down in good old Texas state.
All hearts were gay and happy with no thought of cruel fate.
The children played upon the streets without a single care,
While hum of toil and business echoed on the morning air;
But suddenly the sky grew dark; then came the wind and rain,
Until the country round was battling with a hurricane,
And as the tempest roared and raged, the angry gulf waves sped
Along the coast until a host were numbered with the dead.

[CHORUS] Many a home with grief is sad; many a heart is aching.
Many a loved one sleeps the sleep that knows no dawn of waking.
Many a life has passed away and stilled a heart once warm,
For lives and homes were swept away in the terrible Texas storm.

[2] In Galveston alone, a thousand felt the hand of death,
And twenty towns were withered by the cyclone's cruel breath,
And where the happy children played and busy toilers trod,
A countless host of helpless lives went forth to meet their God.
How many souls were lost that day no one will ever know,
But thousands weep with hearts bowed down beneath the cruel blow,
And all the nation mourns September eight, the fatal day
When Texas felt the storm that swept those lives and homes away.

[Catalogs indicate that a wax cylinder recording by J. W. Myers appeared in 1901, but I have not found a playable recording online.]