[Verse 1] The City of Benares sailed with children bound for shore, but in the black Atlantic night the sea demanded more. [Chorus] Sing, Mary, sing against the dark, sing though the salt wind blows — a lifeboat full of frightened boys is listening for your voice. [Verse 2] The torpedo found her in the storm, the lifeboats scarce and small, and forty souls in one wooden hull were all that answered the call. [Chorus] Sing, Mary, sing against the dark, sing though the salt wind blows — a lifeboat full of frightened boys is listening for your voice. [Verse 3] No captain there, no crew to lead, just a woman gray with cold, but she gathered up the smallest boy and did as she was told [Verse 4] by something deeper than the rank of soldier, king, or priest — the old, plain duty of the strong to comfort, first, the least. [Chorus] Sing, Mary, sing against the dark, sing though the salt wind blows — a lifeboat full of frightened boys is listening for your voice. [Verse 5] She taught them songs of hearth and home, she rationed out the bread, she told them stories half the night to keep the fear unfed. [Verse 6] Eight days the gray waves rose and fell, eight days of ice and salt, and not one boy she held that week was ever called her fault. [Bridge] A warship broke the empty line, a shadow, then a horn — and children who had given up were carried in like dawn. [Final Chorus] Sing, Mary, sing — the dark is past, sing, though the telling's slow — a lifeboat full of grateful men remembers still your voice., Storytelling
