The Convict's Farewell

[Picture: Decorative divider]

Farewell ye partner of my woes, farewell!
The finest language could but faintly tell,
What I now feel in writing this adieu,
What you must suffer when I'm far from you.
There was a time when happiness my lot,
I liv'd serenely in my little cot;
No wicked thoughts did there disturb my rest,
My children round me, by a father prest;
No father now, methinks I hear them say,
He's gone from us, he's hurried far away.
Nightly I've view'd them in my flurri'd dreams,
Seen their wet eyes and heard their dreadful screams;
Methought my wife came to my lonely cell,
To say adieu, to bid a long farewell;
Soon I awoke and to increase my pains,
I felt my legs encompass'd round with chains;
Then, then I cried, oh drunkenness thou cause,
Of this distress, and made me break those laws
That wise men made for every man to keep,
By them