See notes below the text


SENTENCED TO DEATH

A POEM BY KATHARINE MURPHY

With the Sign of the Cross on my forehead,
as I kneel on this cold dungeon floor,
As I kneel at your feet, reverend father,
with no one but God to the fore;

With my heart opened out for your readin'
an' no hope or thought of relase
From the death that at daybreak to-morrow
is starin' me straight in the face,

I have tould you the faults of my boyhood
the follies an' sins of my youth
An' now of this crime of my manhood I'll
spake with the same open truth.

You see, sir, the land was our people's
for ninety good years, an' their toil
What first was a bare bit of mountain
brought into good wheat-bearin' soil;

'Twas their hands raised the walls of the cabin,
where our child her were born an' bred,
Where our weddin's an' christenin's wor merry,
where we waked and keened over our dead;

We wor honest an' fair to the landlord
we paid him the rent to the day
An' it wasnt our fault if our hard sweat
he squandered an' wasted away

In the cards, an' the dice, an' the race-course,
an' often in deeper disgrace,
That no tongue could relate without bringin'
a blush to an honest man's face.

But the day come at last that they worked for,
when the castles, the mansions, the lands,
They should hould but in thrust for the people,
to their shame passed away from their hands,

An' our place, sir, too, wint to auction
by many the acres were sought,
An' what cared the sthranger that purchased,
who made 'em the good sale he bought ?

The ould folks wor gone thank God for it
where trouble or care can't purshue,
But the wife and the childher Father in
Heaven what was I to do ?

Still I thought, I'll go spake to the new man
I'll tell him of me an' of mine;
The thrifle that I've put together
I'll place in his hands as a fine;

The estate is worth six times his money,
and maybe his heart isn't cowld :
But the scoundhrel that bought "the thief's pen'orth”
was worse than the pauper that sowld.

I chased him to house an' to office,
wherever I thought he'd be met,
I offered him all he'd put on it
but no, 'twas the land he should get;

I prayed as men only to God pray
my prayer was spurned and denied,
An, what mattered how just my poor right was,
when he had the law at his side ?

I was young, an* but few years was married
to one with a voice like a bird
When she sang the ould songs of our country,
every feeling within me was stirred.

Oh! I see her this minnit before me,
with a foot wouldn't bend a croneen,
Her laughin' eyes lifted to kiss me-
my dar-lin', my bright-eyed Eileen!

'Twas often with pride that I watched her,
her soft arms fouldin' our boy,
Until he chased the smile from her red lip,
an' silenced the song of her joy.

Whisht, father, have patience a minnit, let
me wipe the big drops from my brow
Whisht, father, I'll thry not to curse him;
but I tell you, don't prache to me now.

Excitin' myself? Yes, I know it; but the
story is now nearly done;
An', father, your own breast is heavin'
I (see)the tears down from you run.


Well, he threatened he coaxed he ejected:
for we tried to cling to the place
That was mine yes, far more than 'twas his,sir;
I tould him so up to his face;

But the little I had melted from me in
makin' the fight for my own.
An* a beggar, with three helpless childher,
out on the world wide I was thrown.

An' Eileen would soon have another
another that never drew breath
The neighbors wor good to us always but
what could they do agin' death ?

For my wife an' her infant before me
lay dead, and by him they wor kilt.
As sure as I'm kneeling before you,
to own to my share of the guilt.

I laughed all consolin' to scorn.
I didn't mind much what I said.
With Eileen a corpse in the barn,
on a bundle of straw for a bed;

But the blood in my veins boiled to madness
do they think that a man is a log?
I thracked him once more 'twas the last time
and shot him that night like a dog.

Yes, I did it; I shot him but, father,
let thim who make laws for the land
Look to it, when they come to judgment.
for the blood that lies red on my hand.


NOTES:

first published 1875 in The Nation, in Ireland
also 1886 The Irish Standard, Minneapolis
tune source unknown but handed down
by Mary Ellen Roddy to son
Andy Mary Ellen Gallagher


compare with Google Books image of the article on her in The Irish Monthly for any further cleanup. Auto-scan OCR on this book version was bad, had to change some things.