Classic Poem

You're sending me for life, judge, for killing Bill McCoy;
But maybe you don't know, judge, that I'm Jim Hat-field's boy.
I do not ask for mercy
A Hat-field does not whine;
But I want the court and jury to hear these words of mine

They sent my Pa to Frankfort
For killin' Young Bill's Pap
When I was just a baby
Still in my Mammy's lap.
And me and Ma was left alone,
We heard that Pap was dead;
Somebody wrote a letter
And this was what it said.

Jim Hatfield died on Sunday,
We buried him today;
And as he lay a-dying
These words to me did say.
“Tell the lad back home I said
To never steal or lie,
For his Pappy was a Hatfield
And not afraid to die.

“Tell his Ma to raise him up
To always do the right.
Give him his Grandpap's rifle gun
And teach him how to fight;
Teach him to hate the name ‘McCoy,’
To trust none of their clan;
To never turn his back to them
Or touch their bloody hand.

“Tell him to make no peace with them,
To think of what I've said;
To never lay his rifle down
Till all of them are dead.
For he was born a Hatfield,
To never bend the knee;
His Grandpap fought the Redcoats
And helped to make us free.”

That's all I have to say, Judge.
I've tried to mind my Pap;
I'll say this to my wife back there,
With the baby on her lap.
When I am gone to Frankfort,
I might as well be dead,
To raise the babe the same old way
My dying Pappy said.

To never fail the Hatfield clan,
For he was born to fight.
To never be afraid to die
And shoot McCoys on sight.
And don't forget to tell him,
When you talk to him of me,
That Grandpap fought the Redcoats,
And helped to make us free.