Convict Sixty-nine
by George Albert Leddy
TWENTY YEARS IN A PRISON
WAITING FOR DEATH TO COME
PRAYING EACH NIGHT TILL THE MORNING
FOR THE MASTER TO TAKE ME HOME
TWENTY YEARS AND I’M WEARY
WEARY OF LIFE IN A CELL
MY LIFE IT IS CURSED YET I’M PRAYING
AND GOD HE MUST HEAR
AND HE WILL
The prisoner sits within his cell, his home of twenty years;
Fond visions seem to come and go, he sees them through his tears.
He seems to be a boy again with heart that knows no care.
He seems to see a little girl with sunny, flowing hair.
He reaches out to take her hand;
the vision fades away.
He rouses just to fi nd himself a prisoner old and gray.
Without the scene is sadder still; a hungry, half-crazed tramp
With shrunken cheek and furrowed brow;
a worthless, worn-out scamp.
His life has been a burden; filled with crime, and sin, and shame.
He’d wandered on, he cared not where;
till weary, weak, and lame
He’d reached again the home he’d known in happy days of yore.
A silent shadow leads him blindly to the prison door.
The prisoner in his cell can hear the conversation low:
“Why, yes, a number man was sent here twenty years ago.”
“What was the name? What was the crime?
Was he sent-up for life?”
The answer came in muffled tones:
“They say he killed his wife.”
“Ah, Warden, let me see his face, and if it should be he,
I swear to furnish all the proof to set the prisoner free.”
The Warden said, “Among them all we have Old Sixty-nine;
For twenty years, he’s been of all, the best one on the line.
He’s reconciled unto his fate; he’s faithful first and last;
But since the crime his mind is dead
to all the living past.
He can’t remember who, or where, or how it all began.
I’ll let you see Old Sixty-nine;
perhaps he’d be your man.”
The door is wide; he steps within, then falls back with a cry:
“My God, that cannot be the boy
I knew in days gone-bye!
The stately lad, so proud, so stern,
now shrunken and forlorn;
The handsome face, the noble brow, now haggard, old and worn;
The handsome head of nut-brown hair,
now shaggy, thin and white;
The eyes that sparkled truth and love, now filled with deadly light.
“The boy who once I called my pal, when life was young and gay;
The boy who loved the little gal,
the winsome little May;
The boy who won that fight for love;
for I his rival were.
The day they wed my poor heart bled;
my thoughts were all of her.
With jealous rage I cursed the love
she gave to him alone;
And swore by all, the day would come,
I’d claim her for my own.
“And like the wolf that waits the lamb to wander from the fold;
I waited for the day to come; my heart was cruel and cold.
Then came the day, the fatal day,
I tremble now to tell:
Disguised as man, but with a heart
and soul as black as hell,
I crept into their humble home; she met me with a smile.
My God, that smile, I see it yet;
It nearly drove me wild.
“I clasped her madly to my heart; she fought to get away;
But no, I held her like the jungle
lion holds its prey.
I held her and I kissed her lips; then one unearthly cry,
Which seemed to chill my very blood, and cause my soul to die,
Went ringing through the little room,
then vanish into space;
And lo, my once-loved pal and I were standing face-to-face.
“His eyes were filled with mad-man’s hate;
I shrank like cowards will.
From what I saw within his face,
I knew he meant to kill.
And like a tiger brought to bay,
I thought but for my life.
I struck a blow; ‘twas meant for him; but God, it killed his wife!
And as he raised the lifeless form he cried, ‘My love! My own!’
I shrank away, a frightened cur,
and left them all alone.
“For twenty years, I wandered through this rough, old world alone;
No living soul to call me friend; no place to call my home.
The pain I’ve suffered for my crime; no tongue could ever tell.
If happiness is heaven, then my life has been a hell.
For every time I close my eyes her face I seem to see,
A warning me through eyes of hate: ‘Go back and set him free.’
“But no, the coward in my heart was keeping me away.
She warned me in the dead of night; she led me on by day.
But sure as right will win o’er wrong; she won her fight at last;
To lay my sins before the world; my hiding days are past.”
“Oh, God!” he cried, “Thy will be done,”
and on a bending knee:
“He’s innocent! The crime is mine!
Go set the prisoner free!”
Alas, too late to free the form that sits with bowed-down head;
A mighty hand has freed the soul;
Old Sixty-nine is dead.
Upon the face, a peaceful smile; the first in twenty years.
The Warden stands with bowed-down head; his eyes are filled with tears.
While he who caused this life of shame, so wildly does entreat:
“Oh, God, have mercy on my soul!”
- then dies at his victim’s feet.
Another sun shines bright and clear to name another day;
Shines o’er two freshly mounded graves where two, who’d suffered, lay.
One little slab marked “Sixty-nine;"
the other marked “Unknown.”
While to a court of justice, far above,
two souls have flown;
And may the Judge who judges all,
release them from all care;
For they have suffered here below;
may they be happy - there.