Botany Bay Poem by Anonymous Oceania

Botany Bay

Rating: 2.6


Farewell to old England for ever,
Farewell to my rum culls as well,
Farewell to the well-known Old Bailey.
Where I used for to cut such a swell.

Chorus
Singing, too-ral, li-ooral, li-addity,
Singing, too-ral, li-ooral, li-ay,
Singing, too-ral, li-ooral, li-addity,
Singing, too-ral, li-ooral, li-ay.

There's the captain as is our commander,
There's the bo'sun and all the ship's crew,
There's the first- and the second-class passengers,
Knows what we poor convicts goes through.

'Tain't leaving old England we care about,
'Tain't cos we mispells wot we knows,
But because we all light-fingered gentry
Hops round with a log on our toes.

For fourteen long years I have ser-vi-ed,
And for fourteen long years and a day,
For meeting a bloke in the area,
And sneaking his ticker away.

Oh had I the wings of a turtle-dove,
I'd soar on my pinions so high,
Slap bang to the arms of my Polly love,
And in her sweet presence I'd die.

Now, all my young Dook-ies and Duch-ess-es,
Take warning from what I've to say-
Mind all is your own as you touch-es-es,
Or you'll meet us in Botony Bay.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Fabrizio Frosini 01 January 2016

Botany Bay was the designated settlement for the first fleet when it arrived in Australia in the eighteenth century. It was a settlement intended for the transport of convicts to Australia. The song describes the period in the late 18th and 19th centuries, when British convicts were deported to the various Australian penal colonies by the British government for seven-year terms as an alternative to incarceration in Britain. The second verse is about life on the convict ships, and the last verse is directed to English girls and boys as warning not to steal. [Wikipedia]

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Fabrizio Frosini 01 January 2016

Botany Bay is a song that can be traced back to the musical burlesque, Little Jack Sheppard, staged at The Gaiety Theatre, London, England, in 1885 and in Melbourne, Australia, in 1886. The show was written by Henry Pottinger Stephens and William Yardley, with music composed and arranged by Wilhelm Meyer Lutz. The show's programme credits Botany Bay as 'Old Air arr. Lutz'

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