To blessed Jesus’ holy feet
I’d rush to kill and slay
My plighted lass so fair and sweet,
Should she the wanton play.
I for a cup of water cried,
But they refus’d my prayer,
Then straight into the road I hied,
And fell to robbing there.
I ask’d for fire to warm my frame,
But they’d have scorn’d my prayer,
If I, to pay them for the same,
Had stripp’d my body bare.
Then came adown the village street,
With little babes that cry,
Because they have no crust to eat,
A Gypsy company;
And as no charity they meet,
They curse the Lord on high.
I left my house and walk’d about,
They seized me fast and bound;
It is a Gypsy thief, they shout,
The Spaniards here have found.
From out the prison me they led,
Before the scribe they brought;
It is no Gypsy thief, he said,
The Spaniards here have caught.
Throughout the night, the dusky night,
I prowl in silence round,
And with my eyes look left and right,
For him, the Spanish hound,
That with my knife I him may smite,
And to the vitals wound.
Will no one to the sister bear
News of her brother’s plight,
How in this cell of dark despair,
To cruel death he’s dight?
The Lord, as e’en the Gentiles state,
By Egypt’s race was bred,
And when he came to man’s estate,
His blood the Gentiles shed.
O never with the Gentiles wend,
Nor deem their speeches true;
Or else, be certain in the end
Thy blood will lose its hue.