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06 Feb 08 - 02:20 PM (#2255174) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mary Parker's Lament (Judy Small) From: Whistlepenny Didn't she also write "Mary Parker's Lament", about a young girl transported to Australia for stealing some cloth? That's a wonderful song too. |
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06 Feb 08 - 11:40 PM (#2255638) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mary Parker's Lament (Judy Small) From: Sandra in Sydney Whistlepenny - she is a great songwriter & wrote the Mary Parker song, unfortunately there are no lyrics on her website |
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07 Feb 08 - 06:15 PM (#2256376) Subject: Lyr Add: MARY PARKER'S LAMENT (Judy Small) From: Susanne (skw) Try My Songbook for the lyrics below and a little info. MARY PARKER'S LAMENT (Judy Small) There's a little more grey in my hair nowadays As I sit here watching my grandchildren play And I wonder if they have the faintest idea Of the life that their grandmother knew It's oh and alas for you Mary my girl To be torn from the life you knew half round the world And never again to see home It was back in the eighties, a younger girl then With auburn hair flashing, I'd walk with my man And he'd tell me the places he'd take me to see If only that he had the means But then I was with child and I saw him no more In the pain of our parting I thought I should die And I stole from my master some blankets and cloth Just to keep me and baby alive But 'twas all for nought for the baby he died It felt like a part of me perished inside And for stealing I's sent as a transport to sea Never knowing for where I was bound It's oh and alas for you Mary my girl To be torn from the life you knew half round the world And never again to see home Seven long years was the sentence I bore It felt like a lifetime as I came ashore And I wept when I saw the life waiting for me As a chattel, a whore and a slave So I married a convict, the safer to be From the soldiers and the freed men who chased after me And for seven long years we did work for our keep Ever dreaming of England and home And the children I bore were the joy of my days I longed for my mother to see them at play And our hands grew rough from the scrubbing and dirt And the sun turned our fair skins to brown Then on ticket of leave we were granted some land And worked it and ploughed it by sweat of our hands And forgot about England except in our dreams And called New South Wales our true home And now here I sit watching my grandchildren play And looking back over the length of my days And it's clear in my mind is the Plymouth I knew And I weep for my mother again It's oh and alas for you Mary my girl To be torn from the life you knew half round the world And never again to see home |