[Verse 1: Daoirí Farrell]
Come all ye gallant poachers
Who ramble void of care
Who wander out on moonlit nights
With your dog and gun and snare
Oh the hare and lofty pheasant
You will have at your command
Not thinking on your last career spent on Van Diemen's Land

[Verse 2]
Young Thomas Brown from Nenagh Town
Jack Murphy and poor Joe
Were three determined poachers as our country well did know
By the keeper of the game one night
Brave boys they were trepanned
And straightaway transported unto Van Diemen's Land

[Verse 3]
And the first day that we landed there upon that fatal shore
The planters gathered all around us, there might be twenty score
They ranked us off like horses and they sold us out of hand
And they yoked us to the plough, brave boys
For to plough Van Diemen's Land

[Verse 4]
Now the cottages that we live in
They are made of sods of earth
We have rotten straw for bedding but we dare not say a word
And we ring our huts with fire ring, and we slumber whilst we can
For to keep at bay those beasts of prey
That prowl Van Diemen's Land
[Verse 5]
God bless our wives and families, likewise that happy shore
That isle of sweet contentment which we shall see no more
As for the wretched females, see them we seldom can
There are fourteen men to every woman
That are on Van Diemen's Land

[Verse 6]
Oft times when I am slumbering I have a pleasant dream
That I am sitting by the cool green grass down by a burling stream
Or I am rambling through the meadow fair
With my sweetheart by the hand
Ere I waken broken hearted still on Van Diemen's Land

[Verse 7]
For fourteen years is a long, long time and that's our sentence run
For nothing more than poaching and that's all I ever done
And you'd give up both your dog and your gun and poaching
Every man, if you'd only know the hardships all on Van Diemen's land

[Verse 8]
Perchance I had five hundred pounds all laid out in my hand
I'd give it all up for poaching if that I could command
Then I'd return to Erin's Isle and I'd be a happy man
And I'd bid farewell to poaching likewise Van Diemen's Land