Page:Life, trial and execution, of Mary Thompson.pdf/4

4 COPY OF VERSES WRITTEN IN JAIL.

You servant girls, both far and near,

I pray you to attend,

And, be advis'd by these few lines

Which I in jail have penn’d.

While you are in your master’s house,

If you’ll be rul’d by me,

Don’t let your sweethearts come by night,

A courting unto thee.

He might have a dishonest heart,

Likewise a murdering hand;

The devil and his subtile ways

Are hard to understand.

After you peruse this book,

I hope that you will guard

Against a similar overthrow,

You see what’s my reward.

To die upon the gallows tree

For what I never did,

May it not happen unto thee,

I pray not, God forbid.

May God still give you grace to choose,

While you’re in single life,

To fix upon a proper man,

To whom you’ll be a wife.

Oh! you that have not hearts of stone,

Attend to what I say,

For death has seal’d my earthly doom,

And summon’d me away.

Alas! this dreadful fate of mine,

That I should die in scorn,

Although as guiltless of the crime

As is the babe unborn.