Eliza Hamilton Dunlop (c.1796-1880), words: The Aboriginal mother [Oh! hush thee - hush my baby] (Tune: ’Twas when the seas were roaring, G. F. Handel) (Sydney, 1838); first modern performance; Koen van Stade (tenor), Neal Peres Da Costa (pianoforte); Elizabeth Bay House, Sydney, 27 February 2022

Abstract

The Irish poet Eliza Hamilton Dunlop arrived in NSW with her family in January 1838, and over the next two years her series of eight ‘Songs of exile’ were successively published in Sydney newspapers. The most famous of these is her lament for a murdered child, ‘The Aboriginal mother’, written in response to a recent colonial atrocity, the Myall Creek Massacre, and to be sung to George Frederick Handel’s suitably melancholy theatre song, ‘’Twas when the seas were roaring’. Words (first verse only): Oh! hush thee - hush my baby, / I may not tend thee yet. / Our forest home is distant far, / And midnight's star is set. / Now, hush thee - or the pale-faced men / Will hear thy piercing wail, / And what would then thy mother's tears / Or feeble strength avail! The words in full and music of The Aboriginal mother can be viewed here: https://www.sydney.edu.au/paradisec/australharmony/dunlop-eliza-hamilton.php#1838-aboriginal-mother