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RTim Lyr Add: Transportation Songs (17) Lyr Add: Transportation Songs 05 Sep 14


Joe Offer has asked me to post the lyrics of the songs that exist on my Soundcloud account of Transportation Songs -ie on:
https://soundcloud.com/tim-radford/sets/penal-transportation-songs

So here they are below.

Tim Radford

HERE'S ADIEU TO ALL JUDGES & JURIES.
(As collected from George Blake on May 30th 1906 )

Here's adieu to all judges & juries
Here's adieu to you bailiffs also
Seven years you've parted me from my true love
Seven years I'm transported you know.

Oh Polly I'm going for to leave you
For seven long years or more
But the time it will seem but one moment
When I think on the girl I adore.

Going to some strange country don't grieve me
Nor leaving old England behind
But it's all for the sake of my Polly
And my comrades I'm leaving behind.

And if ever I return for the ocean
Store of riches I'll bring my dear
It's all for the sake of my Polly
II'll cross the salt sea without fear.

How hard is my place of confinement
That keeps me from my hearts delight
Cold chains & cold irons around me
And a plank for my pillow at night.

Oftimes I have wished that some eagle
Would lend me her wings for to fly
I would fly to the arms of my Polly
And on her sweet bosom I'll lie.

Repeat verse 1

HERE'S ADIEU TO ALL JUDGES AND JURIES

Here's adieu to all judges and juries
Justice and Old Bailey too
Seven years you've transported my true love
Seven years he's transported you know

Oh hard is the place of confinement
That leads me from my heart's delight
Cold irons and chains all bound round me
And a plank for me pillow at night

Oh if I had the wings of an eagle
High up on these pinions I'd fly
I'd fly to the arms of my true love
And in her soft bosom I'd lie

Oh me love she is dark and she's proper
My love's like the linnet in spring
Oh the nightingale sleeps in her bosom
And love do fly high on her wing

Oh if e'er I return from the ocean
Scores of riches I'll bring for my dear
And it's all for the sake of my true love
I will cross the salt seas without fear

Here's adieu to all judges and juries
Justice and Old Bailey too
Seven years you've transported my true love
Seven years he's transported you know

From Henry Hills, Lodsworth (Shepperton), Sussex via Martin Carthy
Journal Folk Song Society 1 (1901) p. 135
By W. Percy Merrick
Also
Sharp, English County Folk Songs (1908-1912 / 1961) pp.226-228

ADIEU TO OLD ENGLAND
- George Blake, 30 May 06 - H306

Oh once I could ride in a coach,
Had horses to drag me about:
But now I'm confined in a gaol so strong
And I know not which way to get out.

        Here's adieu to old England, adieu
        Here's adieu to ten thousand, that's more.
        If the world had been ended whilst I had been young
        My sorrows I ne'er should have known.

Oh once I could lie on a bed
That was made of the finest of down.
But now I am glad of a truss of green grass,
To keep my head from the cold ground.

Once I could eat of the bread
That was made from the finest of wheat
But now I am glad with a knolly bread crust
I'm glad I can get it to eat.

Oh once I could drink of that wine
That was made from the finest of grapes,
But now I am glad with a clear water spring
I'm glad I can get it to drink.

AUSTRALIA
(via Cyril Poacher/Oak)

Come all you young fellows
where from e'er you may be
And listen a while to my story
When I were a young man,
my age seventeen
I ought to been serving Victoria our queen
But those hard hearted judges
O how cruel they've been
To send us poor lads to Australia

I fell in with a damsel
she was handsome and gay
I neglected my work more and more every day
And to keep her like a lady
I went on the highway
And for that I was sent to Australia

Where the judges they stand
with their whips in their hands
They drive us like horses
to plough up the land
You should see us poor young fellows
working in that gaol yard
How hard is our life in Australia

Australia Australia I would never see no more
I'm pulled down by fever cast down to death's door
But should I live to see say seven years more
I would then bid adieu to Australia
I would then bid adieu to Australia

JIM JONES (Also already in DT)
                                       
Come and listen for a moment, lads,
And hear me tell my tale.
How across the sea from England
I was condemned to sail.
Now the jury says I'm guilty,
Then says the judge, says he,
"Oh, for life, Jim Jones, I'm sending you
Across the stormy sea.
But take a tip before you ship
To join the iron gang.
Don't get too gay in Botany Bay,
Or else you'll surely hang.
Or else you'll surely hang," says he.
"And after that, Jim Jones,
It's high upon the gallows tree
The crows will pick your bones."

Our ship was high upon the sea
Then pirates came along,
But the soldiers on our convict ship
Were full five hundred strong.
For they opened fire and somehow drove
That pirate ship away.
But I'd rather have joined that pirate ship
Than gone to Botany Bay.
Were the seas are crashing down on us,
And the winds a-blowin' gale,
I'd rather have drowned in misery
Than gone to New South Wales.
There's no time for mischief there they said
Remember what they say
And they'll yet regret they sent Jim Jones
In chains to Botany bay.


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