WILLIAM BURKE'S EXECUTION
(Traditional English) 


Let old and young unto my song
A while attention pay.
The news I'll tell will please you well,
The monster Burke's away.
At the head of Libberton Wynd
He finished his career,
There's few, I'm sure, rich or poor,
For him would shed a tear.

Chorus:
Now Burke, the murderer, is dead,
His troubles here are o'er,
We can't tell where his spririt's fled,
He'll Burke the folk no more.

Eighteen hundred and twenty nine,
Let it recorded be,
Twenty eight day of January
He suffer'd on a tree.
To Edinbro', numbers did go,
That day before 'twas noon,
For to see Burke, that cruel Turk,
Receive his awful doom.

They brought him from Calton Jail,
Some time in the night,
They thought the crowd would do the job
Had they waited till light.
From the Lock-up they brought Burke
Out about the hour of eight,
Where about forty-thousand folk
Impatiently did wait.

The injur'd crowd, they groan'd aloud,
This monster to behold,
Who in his time had thought no crime
To murder young and old.
When the scaffold he did ascend,
The people all did cry,
Bring out Will Hare, we think it fair,
That he should also die.

As round his neck the rope it went,
The shouts did rend the sky,
It's "Burke him, Burke him," the bloodhound,
The people all did cry.
The shouts they did continue on,
Until he was cut down,
The like was never heard before
In Edinbro' town.

His bloody den, it does remain,
For strangers to behold,
Where him and Hare, they did not spare
The lives of young or old.
In memory his bones will be
Preserved for years to come,
Ye Burkites! now beware, lest you
Do meet with the same doom.

Chorus