Even in miserable times, the resilience of the human spirit creates music recalling both good and bad times. The Australian folk song Moreton Bay tells of a place where exiles from Ireland… uh, “disembarked”. It’s also known as the “Convict’s Lament”.eight handbells
One Sunday morning as I went walking / By Brisbane waters I chanced to stray,
I heard a convict his fate bewailing / As on the sunny river bank I lay,
I am a native from Erin’s island / But banished now from my native shore,
They stole me from my aged parents / And from the maiden I do adore.
I’ve been a prisoner at Port Macquarie / At Norfolk Island and Emu Plains,
At Castle Hill and at cursed Toongabbie / At all these settlements I’ve been in chains,
But of all places of condemnation / And penal stations in New South Wales,
To 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 oft times painted with my crimson gore,
And many a man from downright starvation / Lies mouldering now underneath the clay,
And Captain Logan he had us mangled / All at the triangles of Moreton Bay.
Like the Egyptians and ancient Hebrews / We were oppressed under Logan’s yoke,
Till a native black lying there in ambush / Did deal this tyrant his mortal stroke,
My fellow prisoners be exhilarated / That all such monsters such a death may find,
And when from bondage we are liberated / Our former sufferings will fade from mind.
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