maggie may
Come gather round you sailerboys
and listen to my plea.
When you’ve heard my tale, you pity me.
For I was a goddamned fool
in the port of Liverpool,
on the first time that I came home from sea.
I was paid of at the home
from the port of Sierra Leone,
four pound ten a monthe was all me pay.
And it jingled in me tin, till I was taken in
by a girl with de name of Maggie May.
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Oh, Maggie, Maggie May,
they have taken her away
to slave upon Van Diemen’s cruel shore.
For she robbed so many sailors
and captains of the whalers,
but she’ll never stroll down
Paradise Street no more.
When I first met Maggie May,
well she took my breath away;
she was cruising up and down old Cannon Place.
She was dressed in a gown so fine
like a frigate of the line,
So, me being a sailor, I gave chase.
She gave me a saucy nod,
and me like a farmer’s clod,
let her take me line abreast in tow.
Oh, and under all plain sail,
well we ran before the gale
and to the Crow’s Nest tavern we did go.
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In the morning when I woke,
well I foud that I was broke,
I hadn’t got a penny to me name.
So I had to pawn me suit,
well me Johnn L’s and me boots,
down in the far claim pawnshop number nine.
Oh you thievin’ Maggie May,
well you robbed me of me pay,
when I spent last night with you ashore..
And the judge, he guilty found her,
of robbin’ a homewardbounder,
but she’ll never stroll
down Paradise Street no more.
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She wuz chained and sent away from
Liverpool one day.uit Liverpool.
The lads they cheered as she sailed down the bay.
/ hay
And every sailor lad, well he only was too glad
that they sent the ol’ girl back to Botany Bay.
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