LAMENT ON THE FATE OF
SIR J FRANKLIN AND HIS CREWS

You tender Christians I pray attend
To these few lines that I have now penned
Of Sir John Franklin and his brave band
Who've perished far from their native land

So listen now while I tell to you
The fate of Franklin and his brave crew

It is now nine years since they first set sail
With joyous hearts and a pleasant gale
In frozen regions to cruise about
A North West passage to find out

There was many a sad and an aching heart
As from their friends these brave men did part
To plough their way o'er the raging main
For fear they should ne'er return again

When six dreary years they had been away
Some other vessels without delay
Were sent to search for the missing crews
But alas of them they could hear no news

A gloomy mystery for nine long years
Their wives and children has kept in tears
In deepest anguish they did await
The ships sent out to learn their fate

Poor Lady Franklin in great despair
In anguish wild she tore her hair
Saying "Ten thousand pounds I'd give for news
Of my loving Franklin and his brave crews.

The government in this present year
Did pensions give to their families dear
But Lady Franklin did refuse the grant
Crying "Give me my husband - I no money want"

At length sad tidings of this brave band
Has reached the shores of their native land
By which we hear that they all are dead
Though suffering much ere their souls had fled

As through the frozen seas they pushed
Their ships by blocks of ice were crushed
And offering prayers for their babes and wives
Many brave souls did lose their lives

Forty poor creatures from a watery grave
With one of the boats their lives did save
And over the ice they now took their way
To reach in safety the Hudson's Bay

What horrid sufferings of pain and want
Those frozen regions no food did grant
At length - o horrid- for want of meat
Their dying comrades they had to eat

How horrid was the sight when found
Their limbs and bodies lay scattered round
The flesh knawed (sic) off from every bone
Oh may their souls to heaven have gone

Now for to finish and make an end
May God their families from want defend
. And while their loss we sadly deplore
We hope such horrors to hear no more.

John Moulden pointed out the above version , from a broadsheet reproduced in Leslie Shepard's "The Broadside Ballad". Shephard dates it to circa 1859, published in London(?). No air given.

We're still left, it seems ot me, with the fragment collected by Greanleaf and Mansfield - which doesn't really appear in any of the other versions. The "ice-king" bit smacks of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner to me!

Regards^^