The version below is the one that my grandfather from Letter Kenny taught my mother (born in 1929) and he and she both sang to me. My grandfather told me that his father sang it to him when he was young. So the roots I found are in Ireland in the early 1900. Not Mississippi


THE PRISONER

Two convicts one day were seated, in a lonely prison cell -
The story of their past lives to each other did tell.
"I was once young and happy," said the elder of the two,
"I had a loving wife and a little baby too."

"One night as I went home, after working hard all day,
I found the fire had gone out and my wife had run away.
It was then I started drinking - for what else could I do?
I mixed with bad companions and became a burglar too."

"One night as I went out, to rob a mansion grand,
The tools were in my pocket, a revolver in my hand.
As I climbed through that window a gentle voice I heard.
I fired a shot, then cried a lot. By God I've shot my child."

Without a friend in all this wide world, not a friend to speak my name,
Praying to God that I might die, praying all in vain,
For after all that I have suffered, no man could ever tell,
With no place to shelter, but this lonely prison cell.


mandaqu@aol.com