Come all ye sailors bold, and when me tale is told
I know ye all will sadly pity me
For I was a god-damn fool in the port o’ Liverpool
On the voyage when I first paid off from sea
Oh Maggie Maggie May, they have taken you away
For to slave upon Van Dieman’s cruel shore
Oh, you robbed many a sailor, and many a drunken whaler
But you’ll never cruise down Paradise Street no more!
I paid off at the Home, after a voyage from Sierra Leone
Two pound ten a month had been my pay;
As I jingled in me tin, I was sadly taken in
By a lady of the name of Maggie May
When I steered into her, I hadn’t got a care
I was cruisin’ up and down old Canning Place;
She was in a gown so fine, like a frigate of the line,
And bein’ a sailorman, I gave her chase
Chorus
She gave me a saucy nod, and like a farmer’s clod
I let her take me line abreast in tow
An’ under all plain sail, we ran before the gale
An’ to the Crow’s Nest Tavern we did go
Next mornin’ when I woke, I found that I was broke
I hadn’t got a penny to me name
So I had to pop me suit, me John Ls and me Boots
Down in the Kelly Pawn Shop Number Nine
Oh you theivin’ Maggie May, ye robbed me of my pay
When I slept with you that night ashore
Oh, guilty the jury found her, for robbin’ a homeward-bounder
And she’ll never roll down Paradise Street no more
She was chained and sent away from Liverpool one day;
The lads they cheered as she sailed down the Bay
And every sailor lad, he only was too glad
They’d sent the old gal out to Botany Bay!