In this fading light the mainland
Lies vague out on the horizon
A lighthouse beaming its welcome
To Gross Isle and liberty’s sweet shore

For three months and a day we’ve been sailing
Around pinnacles of ice we’ve been steering
Storms and Nor’easters a raging
To deliver us to liberty’s sweet shore john on this chorus

Sailing to liberty’s sweet shore
Sailing to liberty’s sweet shore
We left all we know to this new life we’ll go
Sailing to liberty’s sweet shore

Two pounds a head for the passage
With ease our landlord surrendered
And wiped his hands clean as he tendered
From a distance he watched us all go

We sailed on the fifth day of September
Two hundred poor souls crammed together
From our families and homeland we’re severed
The clothes on our backs all we own

We’re bowed down in sickness and hunger
We pray for the hand of our maker
My child was lost to a fever
A quick prayer then hauled gone over broad

Oceans of tears they are falling
In hope and despair both recalling
Now the gulls of St Lawrence they are calling
Soon Quebec and liberty’s sweet shore