I posted this a little while ago. It is a song I wrote a few weeks back, from a story I was told by Anna Curtis, an old member of my Quaker meeting when I was a child. Her Grandmother was a conductor on the Underground Railroad. So, a song about slavery or the deliverance therefrom.

THE BALLAD OF RICHARD MURRAY
Words Lorcan Otway from a true story told my Anna L. Curtis
Tune Star of the County Down.

In eighteen-hundred and fifty-six, I was in my eleventh year.
There came a pounding at the door, which seized my heart with fear.
For I knew we Quakers were hated for our love of liberty,
For my parents were abolitionists, and foes of slavery.

My father, John Murray, cracked the door and peered outside,
When a burly man forced the door open and pushed him to one side.
He glanced around the room, then said, “I see you're all at home.”
He then went out to two comrades, leaving us, for a time, alone.

My father knew they would search the barn and find our horses gone,
So he told me to go up to my room, and ‘tis that, that I would have done,
But I paused a moment on the stair, and I know I was not to have seen
My mother leading a Black man, to the room where I had been.

Then my father called me down again, and he sat me by the fire,
And he told me to pop some corn, and fear not what may e’er transpire,
For there came a hammering at the door. "Break it in," the men did call,
So my father threw the door open wide, and three men fell into our hall.

When they regained their feet again, their anger cause me alarm.
"We're after a nigger slave this night, who ran off from his master's farm.”
"Thee will find no slaves in this house, my friend, only folks as free as thee.
But, welcome to look as hard as thee may, thou wilt not be stopped by me."

I tried to look calm as I wondered where our guest now hide
In so plain and small a room as this, and I glanced from side to side.
My mother handed a candle to the men to give them light.
"Take care that thee should not curse the dark," she said with some delight.

Our home was then filled with sounds of men searching everywhere.
Every room and closet was opened but found no escapee there.
At last they left, and even said, they were sorry for the harm,
Having broken a chair when they tumbled in. It was that which they fell upon.

“What did thee do with the man, father,” I asked, “once the men were gone?”
“So thee saw,” my father said to me. “It is time thee learned, my son.”
He motioned me up from the hearthstone, then moved it to one side,
And there I saw a room below, where several might safely hide.

"Can I come up now?" came a voice from the dark. "Yes, I think it is safe for thee now."
And I was introduced to Samuel then. I was proud, I do allow,
For I was now a conductor on our railroad underground,
And I'd do my part for justice, until freedom's bell would sound.

Peace, Larry

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 22-Jan-02.