Le Radeau de La Méduse

Ahead of her fellow ships
 The Medusa strayed from its path
 First secession in a long series
 With a dire aftermath
 Stranded far from shore
 The castaways escaped on crafts
 Some carried by running oars
 Others on a hastily built raft
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 Like the waves of the sea beaten by the winds
 Crashing in their course above the abyss
 They'd be tormented in a thousand ways between
 The boards and the sails of the infamous machine
 Among the woes that struck them
 And were worthy to relate
 Was to remember those men
 Who'd put them there and sealed their fate
 The raft is hauled by the small fleet
 Helpless and exposed to deceit
 They dropped the ropes at the first fright
 Breaking the bond that kept them tied
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 Maudits par leur nom, leurs visages changés en pierre
 Comme si la gorgone avait paru devant eux
 L'hostilité primitive, sur eux se resserre
 Sous les plus sinistres cieux
 Twice doomed by mankind, exiled on the seas
 These branded soldiers were just out of their cells
 Caught up by the spite of relentless furies
 Once more prisoners of hell
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 Thirst had soon devoured them, redoubled by the sun's rays
 Legs and feet were skinned, salt water eating them away
 The counting of the drowned taken by despair and storms
 Paced the days spent on this narrow and precarious floor
 Hunger had them slice the dead flesh of a former friend
 Feeding with dismay on this omen of their coming end
 Thrown into the sea, the wounded gave a tragic sight
 Yet all this was none compared to the violence unleashed at night
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 One by one, nocturnal madness made them slaves
 Echoes of the fury of the waves
 Primeval fear filled them with sedition's breath
 Rising toward them from ocean depths
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 Like the waves of the sea beaten by the winds
 Crashing in their course above the abyss
 Out of a hundred, remained only fifteen
 Saved from the ordeal of the infamous machine
 Although the woes struck again
 These living wrecks back on the earth
 Remember those other men
 Who rescued them, restored their worth