The 15th of January, that Tuesday afternoon,
Some hundreds on the ice took their station,
Young men and boys, in youth and bloom,
To the park went for healthy recreation.
But soon it gave way, more than 40 lost their lives
The widows and poor orphans will distress them
God bless those gallant hearts, to save life did strive,
And those now in Heaven - God rest them.
'Twas near four o'clock, how dreadful to relate,
The ice broke up in every quarter,
Two hundred then fell in, oh what a sad fate,
All struggled for their lives in the water...
They clung to the ice, until benumbed with cold,
The ice in their grasp broke asunder,
One lady on the shore, in grief did behold,
Her husband exhausted go under...
A poor faithful dog, saw his master disappear,
And never left the park since that evening,
No food will he take, by the water stays near,
For its master the poor dog is grieving.
Skating in the Regent's Park was very popular in those times when. Sometimes as many as 10,000 people could go skating in a day. People sometimes drowned, but on tis was a disaster on a different scale. Five hundred people were on the ice when it gave way.
The Park-keepers had made the ice more fragile by breaking the ice around the edges for the waterfowl.
Poetry Atlas has many other poems about London.