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.
