South Richmond Girl

"Weep not for my life," said the prisoner
As he stood in the jail cell alone
"For tonight when the black hood drops o'er me
"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 who loved me
"For the charms of a south Richmond girl

"As a young man of twenty I wandered
"One 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 done

"Oh, the north wind blew hard that December
"And the cold streets of Richmond lay bare
"But the child she bore me that winter
"Seemed to answer my weary heart's prayers
"And I swore as I pressed him against me
"No storm could the heavens unfurl
"That would e'er 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 the more that my Richmond girl needed
"The 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 a-crying
"And a man lying there with my bride

"Now, the law's ironbound in Virginia
"But the wheels of its justice roll slow
"Twenty years have I laid in this prison
"Now to my reward I must go"
Then the prisoner's grey head bowed in silence
And the hand that had killed with no fear
Reached out through the steel bars between them
There to rest on a shoulder so dear

At the touch he but dimly remembered
Tears filled the younger man's eyes
For his dream of the past was illusions
And his memories of home only lies
And he knew from this moment forever
That he'd walk all alone through the world
For the mother he'd loved was no angel
But a false-hearted south Richmond girl