Ballads
The Cross Roads
The circumstance related in the following Ballad happened about forty years ago in a village adjacent to Bristol. A person who was present at the funeral, told me the story and the particulars of the interment, as I have versified them.
There was an old man breaking stones
To mend the turnpike way,
He sat him down beside a brook
And out his bread and cheese he took,
For now it was mid-day.
He lent his back against a post,
His feet the brook ran by;
And there were water-cresses growing,
And pleasant was the water’s flowing
For he was hot and dry.
A soldier with his knapsack on
Came travelling o’er the down,
The sun was strong and he was tired,
And of the old man he enquired
How far to Bristol town.
Half an hour’s walk for a young man
By lanes and fields and stiles.
But you the foot-path do not know,
And if along the road you go
Why then ’tis three good miles.
The soldier took his knapsack off
For he was hot and dry;
And out his bread and cheese he took
And he sat down beside the brook
To dine in company.
Old friend! in faith, the soldier says
I envy you almost;
My shoulders have been sorely prest
And I should like to sit and rest,
My back against that post.
In such a sweltering day as this
A knapsack is the devil!
And if on t’other side I sat
It would not only spoil our chat
But make me seem uncivil.
The old man laugh’d and moved. I wish
It were a great-arm’d chair!
But this may help a man at need;
And yet it was a cursed deed
That ever brought it there.
There’s a poor girl lies buried here
Beneath this very place.
The earth upon her corpse is prest
This stake is driven into her breast
And a stone is on her face.
The soldier had but just lent back
And now he half rose up.
There’s sure no harm in dining here,
My friend? and yet to be sincere
I should not like to sup.
God rest her! she is still enough
Who sleeps beneath our feet!
The old man cried. No harm I trow
She ever did herself, tho’ now
She lies where four roads meet.
I have past by about that hour
When men are not most brave,
It did not make my heart to fail,
And I have heard the nightingale
Sing sweetly on her grave.
I have past by about that hour
When Ghosts their freedom have,
But there was nothing here to fright,
And I have seen the glow-worm’s light
Shine on the poor girl’s grave.
There’s one who like a Christian lies
Beneath the church-tree’s shade;
I’d rather go a long mile round
Than pass at evening thro’ the ground
Wherein that man is laid.
There’s one that in the church-yard lies
For whom the bell did toll;
He lies in consecrated ground,
But for all the wealth in Bristol town
I would not be with his soul!
Did’st see a house below the hill
That the winds and the rains destroy?
’Twas then a farm where he did dwell,
And I remember it full well
When I was a growing boy.
And she was a poor parish girl
That came up from the west,
From service hard she ran away
And at that house in evil day
Was taken in to rest.
The man he was a wicked man
And an evil life he led;
Rage made his cheek grow deadly white
And his grey eyes were large and light,
And in anger they grew red.
The man was bad, the mother worse,
Bad fruit of a bad stem,
’Twould make your hair to stand-on-end
If I should tell to you my friend
The things that were told of them!
Did’st see an out-house standing by?
The walls alone remain;
It was a stable then, but now
Its mossy roof has fallen through
All rotted by the rain.
The poor girl she had serv’d with them
Some half-a-year, or more,
When she was found hung up one day
Stiff as a corpse and cold as clay
Behind that stable door!
It is a very lonesome place,
No hut or house is near;
Should one meet a murderer there alone
’Twere vain to scream, and the dying groan
Would never reach mortal ear.
And there were strange reports about
That the coroner never guest.
So he decreed that she should lie
Where four roads meet in infamy,
With a stake drove in her breast.
Upon a board they carried her
To the place where four roads met,
And I was one among the throng
That hither followed them along,
I shall never the sight forget!
They carried her upon a board
In the cloaths in which she died;
I saw the cap blow off her head,
Her face was of a dark dark red
Her eyes were starting wide:
I think they could not have been closed
So widely did they strain.
I never saw so dreadful a sight,
And it often made me wake at night,
For I saw her face again.
They laid her here where four roads meet.
Beneath this very place,
The earth upon her corpse was prest,
This post is driven into her breast,
And a stone is on her face.
The Sailor
who had served in the Slave Trade
In September, 1798, a Dissenting Minister of Bristol, discovered a Sailor in the neighbourhood of that City, groaning and praying in a hovel. The circumstance that occasioned his agony of mind is detailed in the annexed Ballad, without the slightest addition or alteration. By presenting it as a Poem the story is made more public, and such stories ought to be made as public as possible.
He stopt,—it surely was a groan
That from the hovel came!
He stopt and listened anxiously
Again it sounds the same.
It surely from the hovel comes!
And now he hastens there,
And thence he hears the name of Christ
Amidst a broken prayer.
He entered in the hovel now,
A sailor there he sees,
His hands were lifted up to Heaven
And he was on his knees.
Nor did the Sailor so intent
His entering footsteps heed,
But now the Lord’s prayer said, and now
His half-forgotten creed.
And often on his Saviour call’d
With many a bitter groan,
In such heart-anguish as could spring
From deepest guilt alone.
He ask’d the miserable man
Why he was kneeling there,
And what the crime had been that caus’d
The anguish of his prayer.
Oh I have done a wicked thing!
It haunts me night and day,
And I have sought this lonely place
Here undisturb’d to pray.
I have no place to pray on board
So I came here alone,
That I might freely kneel and pray,
And call on Christ and groan.
If to the main-mast head I go,
The wicked one is there,
From place to place, from rope to rope,
He follows every where.
I shut my eyes,—it matters not—
Still still the same I see,—
And when I lie me down at night
’Tis always day with me.
He follows follows every where,
And every place is Hell!
O God—and I must go with him
In endless fire to dwell.
He follows follows every where,
He’s still above—below,
Oh tell me where to fly from him!
Oh tell me where to go!
But tell me, quoth the Stranger then,
What this thy crime hath been,
So haply I may comfort give
To one that grieves for sin.
O I have done a cursed deed
The wretched man replies,
And night and day and every where
’Tis still before my eyes.
I sail’d on board a Guinea-man
And to the slave-coast went;
Would that the sea had swallowed me
When I was innocent!
And we took in our cargo there,
Three hundred negroe slaves,
And we sail’d homeward merrily
Over the ocean waves.
But some were sulky of the slaves
And would not touch their meat,
So therefore we were forced by threats
And blows to make them eat.
One woman sulkier than the rest
Would still refuse her food,—
O Jesus God! I hear her cries—
I see her in her blood!
The Captain made me tie her up
And flog while he stood by,
And then he curs’d me if I staid
My hand to hear her cry.
She groan’d, she shriek’d—I could not spare
For the Captain he stood by—
Dear God! that I might rest one night
From that poor woman’s cry!
She twisted from the blows—her blood
Her mangled flesh I see—
And still the Captain would not spare—
Oh he was worse than me!
She could not be more glad than I
When she was taken down,
A blessed minute—’twas the last
That I have ever known!
I did not close my eyes all night,
Thinking what I had done;
I heard her groans and they grew faint
About the rising sun.
She groan’d and groan’d, but her groans grew
Fainter at morning tide,
Fainter and fainter still they came
Till at the noon she died.
They flung her overboard;—poor wretch
She rested from her pain,—
But when—O Christ! O blessed God!
Shall I have rest again!
I saw the sea close over her,
Yet she was still in sight;
I see her twisting every where;
I see her day and night.
Go where I will, do what I can
The wicked one I see—
Dear Christ have mercy on my soul,
O God deliver me!
To morrow I set sail again
Not to the Negroe shore—
Wretch that I am I will at least
Commit that sin no more.
O give me comfort if you can—
Oh tell me where to fly—
And bid me hope, if there be hope,
For one so lost as I.
Poor wretch, the stranger he replied,
Put thou thy trust in heaven,
And call on him for whose dear sake
All sins shall be forgiven.
This night at least is thine, go thou
And seek the house of prayer,
There shalt thou hear the word of God
And he will help thee there!