Lyrics

Peter Amberley - Traditional

My name is Peter Amberley as you may understand
I was born on Prince Edward Island close by the ocean strand
In eighteen hundred and eighty when the flowers were a brilliant hue
I left my native country my fortune to pursue

I landed in New Brunswick that lumbering country
I hired to work in the lumbering woods down south of Miramichi
I hired to work in the lumbering woods to cut the tall spruce down
While loading teams with yarded logs I received my deathly wound

There’s danger on the ocean where the waves role mountains high
There’s danger on the battlefield where the angry bullets fly
There is danger in the lumbering woods though death lurks seldom there
And I have fallen a victim unto its monstrous snare

Adieu unto my father twas him who sent me here
Twas him who drove me here to die by his treatment too severe
It is not right to press a boy or try to keep him down
For it will make him leave his home when he is far too young

Adieu unto my dearest friend I mean my mother dear
She reared a son who fell as soon as he left her tender care
But little did my mother think when she sang my lullaby
What country I would travel in or what death I would die

Adieu to Prince Edward Island and the island girl so true
Long may they live to roam the shore where my first breath I drew
No more I’ll see those lofty ships as they go sailing by
With banners floating in the breeze above their canvas high

Now when I’m dead and buried there’s one thing that I crave
To have a holy father to bless my lonely grave
It’s near the village of Boiestown my mouldering bones will lay
Awaiting the Saviour’s call on that great judgement day