By James Wilson, August 1852

THE START OF AN
EMIGRATION JOURNEY

And must I leave fair Scotia's shores,
And all I hold so dear;
When parting from such numerous friends,
Who would not shed a tear.

And must I break my parents heart,
With double grief and woe;
For while she does my father mourn,
She'll mourn my absence too.

From my five brothers must I part,
Likewise my sisters twain;
O'ye perhaps I leave you all,
Never to meet again.

One only partner goes with me
To a far distant isle;
King Heaven reward my faithful wife,
For all the love and toil.

For she has left her mother too,
Likewise her sisters seven;
I wish I ne'er may see again,
Such crying, and such grieving.

And when upon the Trident's decks
And ploughing through the ocean;
I look back on my native land,
With grief and emotion.

I almost had forgot to tell,
The time we left our native land,
T'was in the season of the year,
When scorching dog days end.

When August and the whiten'd fields,
Proclaim the harvest near;
The day before the sportsman's gun,
The frightened muirfowl hear.

That day was sad, the night was drear,
For the wind, and sea did fight;
And as the ship strove with the gale,
We most all were sick that night.

Some comfort t'was as morning dawned,
To see a calm and England's coast;
So through the deep the steam-ship flew,
To where the Thames in ocean's lost.

Then Sheerness and Gravesend we pass,
And ships as thick as bees,
Woolwich and Greenwich next we view,
And masts like forest trees.

And then great London meets our sight,
And seen the ship in harbour lies;
The night we all were fully treat,
With bread, good ale, and cheese.

And then we disembarked next day,
And got eight pounds of advance pay;
For to buy clothes that we might sail,
Across the seas from Britain's Isle.

Reproduced courtesy Archives of British Columbia