Murder of Maria Marten

If you'll meet me at the Red Barn
As sure as I have life
I will take you to Ipswich town
And there make you my wife

He straight went home and fetched his gun
His pickaxe and his spade
He went unto the Red Barn
And there he dug her grave

Come all you thoughtless young men
A warning take by me
To think upon my unhappy fate
To be hanged upon a tree

My name is William Corder
To you I do declare
I courted Maria Marten
Both beautiful and fair

I promised I would marry her
Upon a certain day
Instead of that I was resolved
To take her life away

I went unto her father's house
The eighteenth day of May
And said my dear Maria
We will fix a wedding day

With her heart so light she thought no harm
To meet me she did go
I murdered her all in the barn
And laid her body low

After the horrid deed was done
She lay there in her gore
Her bleeding, mangled body lay
Beneath the Red Barn floor

Now all things being silent
Her spirit could not rest
She appeared unto her mother
Who'd suckled her at her breast

For many a long month or more
Her mind being sore oppressed
Neither at night nor yet by day
Could she take any rest

Her mother's mind being sore disturbed
She dreamed it three nights o'er
Her daughter she lay murdered
Beneath the Red Barn floor

She sent the father to the Barn
Where he the ground did thrust
And there he found his daughter
Lay mingling with the dust

My trial was hard, I could not stand
Most woeful was the sight
When her dear bones was brought to proof
Which pierced my heart quite

Her aged father standing by
Likewise his loving wife
And in her grief her hair she tore
She scarcely could keep life

Adieu adieu, my loving friends
My glass is almost run
On Monday next will be my last
When I am to be hung

So all young men who do pass by
With pity look on me
For murdering of that young girl
I was hung upon a tree