Mary Parker's Lament

There's a little more grey in the hair nowadays As I sit here and watching my grandchildren play And I wonder if they have the faintest idea Of the life that their grandmother knew. And 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 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 masters some blankets and cloth Just to keep me and baby alive But t'was for a 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. And it's oh and alas for you Mary my girl To be torn of 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 were 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 were rough from the scrubbing and dirt Abd the sun turned our fair skin to brown. Then on ticket of leave we were grated 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. And 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.