Milwaukee County Wisconsin Genealogy

MILWAUKEE MARINE AND SHIPPING
SHIPWRECKS AND DISASTERS

POETRY ON THE TRAGEDY

Verses by Unknown Writers – In Memory of Brave Capt. Jack Wilson.

The following poem was one of several that were suggested by the tragedy:

Hold fast thy treasures, restless deep;
Hold fast thy jewels, keep thy gold,
In Sunless caverns let them sleep,
Enwreathed with many an emerald fold,
Of Nereids pale and shining hair.
Mingled with pearls and sea plants rare.

We ask not these. O! treacherous deep;
Keep ship and gems and beaten gold;
Give us the dead whose loss we weep,
Ere thy embraces stern and cold
Have swept from each beloved face
All that we hope, yet fear to trace.

Give us our dead, that we may gaze
Once more upon the eyes whose light
Of hope an love in earlier days,
Made our life’s weary pathway bright.
Give us our dead, though might sea—
What are those faded forms to thee?

No answer from the sullen lake:
None, save the wild waves’ savage roar.
Laughing as if in scorn, they break
Tempestuous seal there comes a day
When thy dread power shall pass away.

Then ransomed from thy ruthless grasp
By sovereign love’s all saving hand,
We shall behold our dead at last:
In life and beauty see them stand.
He who stilled storm-vexed Galilee,
Shall cry, “Give up thy dead, O sea!”



Capt. Jack Wilson, the brave commandant of th Elgin, 
was the subject of the following poem:

Hark! The sorry waves are moaning
O’er his body-wanting soul,
And like human voice groaning
They are weeping as they roll.
Hark! The summer wind that hurried
In the tempest fierce and wild
Sighs a requiem o’er the buried
Like the wailing of a child.
Mourn, fond friends, who loved and cherished,
Swell the anguish of the blast!
One of earth’s brave sons has perished—
Hang the heart’s flag at half mast,
See! The black robed sky is weeping!
Thunder sounds its wild alarms—
Cruel waves, where are ye sweeping
With our brother in your arms?
Yet, ‘tis well! Storm, cease thy crying!
Smother, wind , they pitying sigh!
Men like him, who fear not dying,
Well a hero’s death may die
When this weary life and mortal
Endeth thus in noble strife—
When thus suddenly the portal
Opens on eternal life:--
When the radiant soul, ascending
Buck to God is humbly given,
And in awe is meekly bending
As the Father’s feet in heaven:--
Yes, when heroes thus are beckoned
Without warning from life’s aching,
Will not such brave hearts be reckoned
In the giving and the taking?
Hark! The sorry waves are moaning
O’er his body-wanting soul,
And like human voices groaning
They are weeping as they roll.