Liberty's Sweet Shore lyrics

In this fading light, the mainland

Lies vague out on the horizon

A lighthouse beaming its welcome

To Grosse Île and liberty’s sweet shore

Three months and a day we’ve been sailing

'Round pinnacles of ice we’ve been steering

Storms and Nor’easters a raging

To deliver us to liberty’s sweet shore

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

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

We’re bowed down in sickness and in hunger

And we pray for the hand of our maker

My child was lost to a fever

A quick prayer, then hauled overboard

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

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

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