Queen of the Waves is a French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 hymn

Hymn

A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...

 (author unknown) sung by French fishermen seeking protection from storms.

In the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, it became well-known as a result of the Galveston Hurricane of 1900

Galveston Hurricane of 1900

The Hurricane of 1900 made landfall on the city of Galveston in the U.S. state of Texas, on September 8, 1900.It had estimated winds of at landfall, making it a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale...

. The nuns of the St. Mary's Orphan Asylum had the orphans sing this song (in English) in order to calm them. Of the 93 children and 10 sisters in the orphanage, only three teenage boys survived.

As a result of this event, the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word

Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word

The Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word is the name of two Roman Catholic religious orders based in the state of Texas.- Houston Order :...

 across the world sing this song every year on September 8, and remember the sisters and orphans that died that day.

The Sisters of Charity created an audio CD titled Queen of the Waves: Centennial Remembrance of The Great Storm of 1900, and MP3

MP3

MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...

 audio files are available from the official 1900 Storm Remembrance Site. This CD tells the story of the Saint Mary's Orphanage during the 1900 Storm and includes the song Queen of the Waves.

Also, Gertrude Ederle

Gertrude Ederle

Gertrude Caroline Ederle was an American competitive swimmer. In 1926, she became the first woman to swim across the English Channel. Gertrude Ederle was the daughter of a German immigrant who ran a butcher shop on Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan; she was born in New York City. She was known as...

, the first woman to swim across the English Channel

English Channel

The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...

 in 1926 was popularly known in the press as "Queen of the Waves."

Lyrics

Queen of the Waves, look forth across the ocean

From north to south, from east to stormy west,

See how the waters with tumultuous motion

Rise up and foam without a pause or rest.

But fear we not, tho' storm clouds round us gather,

Thou art our Mother and thy little Child

Is the All Merciful, our loving Brother

God of the sea and of the tempest wild.

Help, then sweet Queen, in our exceeding danger,

By thy seven griefs, in pity Lady save;

Think of the Babe that slept within the manger

And help us now, dear Lady of the Wave.

Up to thy shrine we look and see the glimmer

Thy votive lamp sheds down on us afar;

Light of our eyes, oh let it ne'er grow dimmer,

Till in the sky we hail the morning star.

Then joyful hearts shall kneel around thine altar

And grateful psalms re-echo down the nave;

Never our faith in thy sweet power can falter,

Mother of God, our Lady of the Wave.

External links

• Story of the Orphanage told by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word
  Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word
  The Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word is the name of two Roman Catholic religious orders based in the state of Texas.- Houston Order :...
  
  
• Queen of the Waves: Centennial Remembrance of The Great Storm of 1900 (produced by the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word) - with description at the official 1900 Storm Remembrance Site