Come all ye sailors bold, an’ when me tale is told,
I know ye all will sadly pity me.
For I was a god-dam fool, in the port of Liverpool,
on the voyage when I first paid off from sea.

Ooh, Maggie Maggie May, they have taken you away,
for to slave upon Van Diemens cruel shore.
Oh, you robbed many a whaler an’ many a drunken sailer.
But ye’ll never cruise down paradise street no more.

I paid off at the home, from a voyage down Sierre Leone,
two pounds ten a month had been my pay.
As I jingled in me tin, I wuz sadly taken in,
By a lady of the name of Maggie May.

Ooh, Maggie Maggie May, they have taken you away,
for to slave upon Van Diemens cruel shore.
Oh, you robbed many a whaler an’ many a drunken sailer.
But ye’ll never cruise down paradise street no more.

When I got full of beer, to her lodgings we did steer,
she charged me fifteen shillings for the fight.
I was so ruddy drunk, when I landed in her bunk,
I never knew what happened in the night.

Ooh, Maggie Maggie May, they have taken you away,
for to slave upon Van Diemens cruel shore.
Oh, you robbed many a whaler an’ many a drunken sailer.
But ye’ll never cruise down paradise street no more.

She wuz chained and sent away, from Liverpool one day,
The lads they cheered as she sailed down the bay.
An ev’ry sailor lad, he only wuz too glad,
they’d sent the ol’girl out to Botany Bay.

Ooh, Maggie Maggie May, they have taken you away,
for to slave upon Van Diemens cruel shore,
oh, you robbed many a whaler an’ many a drunken sailer.
But ye’ll never cruise down paradise street no more.