Water

We set sail that misty morn
Left the port, the men forlorn
Upon a beast of iron and wood
At the helm did our captain - brave soul! - stood

The voyage hard, the masts were creaking
And the planks of the cabins were leaking
Our fates left to the waves and the wind
With abated breath did we wait until the fog thinned

God knows how many men trusted themselves to the waves
Only the ocean knows how many have found their watery graves
Their names we will keep
In both heart and mind as we sailed the ocean where they sleep

We lost three slaves to the water
Condemned to servitude, then to nature's slaughter
Neptune pity their souls
Those we lost to the shoals

And at long lost we set eye 'pon the shore
By God, how the waves did roar
As we reached the New World, the New Land
Our feet the first to touch this sand