Weep not for my life, said the prisoner,
as she stood in the jail cell alone.
For tonight when the black
my troubles will finally have flown.
It's a long line of sorrow I'm leaving,
It's a dark path I walked in this world,
Since I left a sweet one to love me,
For the charms of a South Richmond girl.
As a young man of twenty I wondered,
What night to the south end of town,
In the pale amber glow she was standing
Like a diamond that heaven dropped down
In her face was a promise unspoken
In her arms all my strength overcome
In the morning I married that stranger
Never knowing the wrong I had
And the cold streets of Richmond lay bare
But the child she bore me that winter
And I swore as I pressed him against me
No storm could the heavens unfurl
And would air cloud the life of my baby
Or his mother, my South Richmond girl
So from each early dawn I did labor
For the little my two hands could earn
But later each night I'd return
When the sawmill one Friday closed early
I ran home and threw the door wide
Just to see my baby crying
And a man lying there with my bride
Now the law's iron -bound in Virginia,
But the wheels of its justice roll slow.
Twenty years have I lain in this prison,
Now to my reward I must go.
Then the prisoner's grey head
And the hand that had killed with no fear,
Reached out through the steel
There to rest on his shoulder so dear.
And the touch he but dimly
Tears filled the younger man's eyes.
For his dream of the past was illusions,
And his memories of home only lies.
For the mother he loved was no angel
4.8
