Maria Martin Words
Come all you thoughtless young men, a warning take by me
And think on my unhappy fate to be hanged on a tree
My name is William Corder, to you I do declare
That I courted Maria Marten, most beautiful and fair
I promised I would marry her upon a certain day
Instead of that I was resolved to take her life away.
I went unto her father’s house the eighteenth day of May.
O come my dear Maria and let us fix the day
If you’ll meet me at the Red Barn, as sure as I have life
I will take you to Ipswich Town and there make you my wife
I straight went home and fetched my gun, my pick axe and my spade
I went into the Red Barn and there I dug her grave
With heart so light, she thought no harm; to meet me she did go
I murdered her all in that barn and laid her body low
The horrid deed that I had done, she lay there in her gore
Her bleeding, mangled body I threw on the Red Barn floor
Now all things being silent, they could not take no rest
She appeared in her mother’s house who had suckled at her breast
For many a long month or more her mind being sore oppressed
Neither by the night nor by the day, she could not take no rest
Her mother’s mind being so disturbed she dreamed three night o’er
Her daughter she lay murdered all on the Red Barn floor
She sent the father to the barn, where in the ground he thrust
And there he found his daughter, mingling with the dust
My trial is hard, I could not stand, most woeful was the sight
When her jaw bone was brought to prove, which pierced my heart quite
Her aged father standing by, likewise his loving wife
And with her grief her hair she tore, she scarce could keep her life
Adieu, adieu my loving friends, my glass is almost run
On Monday next will be my last, when I am to be hung.
So you young men that do pass by, with pity look on me;
For murdering Maria Marten I was hanged upon a tree.
Come all you thoughtless young men, a warning take by me
And think on my unhappy fate to be hanged on a tree
My name is William Corder, to you I do declare
That I courted Maria Marten, most beautiful and fair
I promised I would marry her upon a certain day
Instead of that I was resolved to take her life away.
I went unto her father’s house the eighteenth day of May.
O come my dear Maria and let us fix the day
If you’ll meet me at the Red Barn, as sure as I have life
I will take you to Ipswich Town and there make you my wife
I straight went home and fetched my gun, my pick axe and my spade
I went into the Red Barn and there I dug her grave
With heart so light, she thought no harm; to meet me she did go
I murdered her all in that barn and laid her body low
The horrid deed that I had done, she lay there in her gore
Her bleeding, mangled body I threw on the Red Barn floor
Now all things being silent, they could not take no rest
She appeared in her mother’s house who had suckled at her breast
For many a long month or more her mind being sore oppressed
Neither by the night nor by the day, she could not take no rest
Her mother’s mind being so disturbed she dreamed three night o’er
Her daughter she lay murdered all on the Red Barn floor
She sent the father to the barn, where in the ground he thrust
And there he found his daughter, mingling with the dust
My trial is hard, I could not stand, most woeful was the sight
When her jaw bone was brought to prove, which pierced my heart quite
Her aged father standing by, likewise his loving wife
And with her grief her hair she tore, she scarce could keep her life
Adieu, adieu my loving friends, my glass is almost run
On Monday next will be my last, when I am to be hung.
So you young men that do pass by, with pity look on me;
For murdering Maria Marten I was hanged upon a tree.