CONVICT MAID
an early broadside relating to Australia
NOTE: Ron Edwards states in The Convict Maid (1985 Rams Skull Press) that the original ballads were printed as broadsides without music, and usually without suggestion of the tune to which they could be sung. The buyers of the broadsides would sing the words to whatever tune they knew that happened to fit.
Ye London maids attend to me,
While I relate my misery;
Thro' London streets oft I've stray'd,
But now I am a convict maid.
In innocence I once did live,
In all the joy that peace can give;
But sin my youthful heart betray'd;
And now I am a convict maid.
To wed my lover, I did try,
To take my masters property:
So all my guilt was soon display'd;
And I became a convict maid.
Then I was soon to prison sent,
To wait, in fear, my punishment,
When at the bar I stood dismay'd
Since doomed to be a convict maid.
At length the judge did me address,
Which filled with pain my aching breast,
To Botany Bay you will be convey'd
For seven years a convict maid.
For seven years – oh, how I sighed,
While my poor mother loudly cried!
My lover wept, and thus he said,
“May God be with my convict maid.”
To you that hear my mournful tale,
I cannot half my grief reveal;
No sorrow yet has been portray'd
Like that of the poor convict maid.
Far from my friends and home so dear,
My punishment is most severe;
My woe is great, and I'm afraid
That I shall die a convict maid.
I toil each day in grief and pain,
In sleepless thought the night remain;
My constant toils are unrepaid,
And wretched is the convict maid.
Oh, could I but once more be free,
I'd ne'er again a captive be;
But I would seek some honest trade
And ne'er become a convict maid
