COME all you thoughtless young men, a warning
Take by me,
And think upon my unhappy fate to be hanged upon
A tree;
My name is William Corder, to you I do declare,
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 into her father's house the 18th day of May,
Saying, my dear Maria, we will fix the wedding day.
If yon will 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 then went home and fetched my gun, my pickaxe
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,
He murdered her all in the barn, and laid her body low;
After the horrid deed was done, she lay weltering in
Her gore,
Her bleeding mangled body he buried, under the Red-
Barn floor.
Now all things being silent, her spirit could not rest,
She appeared unto her mother, who suckled her at her
Breast;
For many a long month or more, her mind being sore
Oppress'd,
Neither night nor day she could not take any rest.
Her mother's mind being so disturbed, she dreamt
Three nights o'er,
Her daughter she lay murdered, beneath the Red-
Barn floor;
She sent the father to the barn, when he the ground
Did 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 in her grief her hair she tore, she scarcely could
Keep life.
Adieu, adieu, my loving friends, my glass is almost
Run,
On Monday next will be my last, when I am to be
Bang'd;
So you young men who do pass by, with pity look on
Me.
For murdering Maria Marten I was hang'd upon the
Tree.