One Sunday morning as I went walking By Brisbane waters I chanced to stray I heard a prisoner his fate bewailing As on the sunny river bank he lay I am a native from Erin's island Transported now from my native shore They tore me from my aged parents And from the maiden whom I adore
I've been a prisoner at Port Macquarie At Norfolk Island and Emu Plains At Castle Hill and cursed Toongabbie At all those settlements I've woked in chains But of all places of condemnation And penal stations of New South Wales Of Moreton Bay I have found no equal Excessive tyranny each day prevails
For three long years I was beastly treated And heavy irons on my legs I wore My back from flogging was lacerated And often slain with my crimson gore And many a man from downright starvation Lies mouldering underneath the clay And Captain Logan he had us mangled At the triangles in Moreton Bay
Like the Egyptians and ancient Hebrews We were oppressed under Logan's yoke Till a native black lying there in ambush Did give our tyrant his mortal stroke My fellow prisoners exhilarated That all such monsters a death shall find And when from bondage we're liberated Our former sufferings shall fade from mind