Maggie May

Now gather ‘round you sailor boys, and listen to me plea

When you’ve heard me tale, you’ll pity me

For I was a ruddy fool in the port of Liverpool

The first time that I come home from sea

Oh, we was paid off at the home from the port of Sierra Leone

And four-pound ten was all me pay

With a pocket full of tin, I was very soon taken in

By a naughty little girl by the name of Maggie May

Oh, Maggie, Maggie May, they have taken her away

To slave upon Van Diemen’s cruel shore

She robbed so many sailors and the captains of the whalers

She’ll never cruise down Paradise Street no more

Now, well, do I remember when I first met Maggie May

She was cruising up and down Old Canning Place

She’d a figure that was finer than the fastest ocean liner

Me, being a sailor I gave chase

Well, Maggie, Maggie May, they have taken her away

To slave upon Van Diemen’s cruel shore

She robbed so many sailors and the captains of the whalers

She’ll never cruise down Paradise Street no more

Next morn, when I awoke, I was flat and stony broke

No jacket waistcoat trousers could I find

When I asked her where they were, she said my kind young sir

They’re down in Kelley’s Pawn Shop number nine

Maggie, Maggie May, they have taken her away

To slave upon Van Diemen’s cruel shore

She robbed so many sailors and the captains of the whalers

She’ll never cruise down Paradise Street no more

So the pawn shop did I go, but no clothes there could I find

A scuffer come and he took that gal away

And a judge he guilty found her, of robbing a homeward-bounder

And paid her passage out to Botany Bay

Maggie, Maggie May, they have taken her away

To slave upon Van Diemen’s cruel shore

She robbed so many sailors and the captains of the whalers

She’ll never cruise down Paradise Street no more

Yes, Maggie, Maggie May, they have taken her away

And she’ll never walk down Lime Street anymore

She’s finished robbing sailors, she’s started robbing jailers

That dirty, robbing no-good Maggie May