The Infanticide of Marie Farrar Songtext

von Weddings Parties Anything

Marie Farrar. Orphaned minor
Rickets. Birthmarks none.
Admits that she did kill her child
As follows here in summary

She visited a woman in a basement
When she was two months gone, as she reports it
And she had two injections there
Which hurt so bad but they did not abort it

AND you I beg make not your anger manifest
For all that live need help from all the rest

Nonetheless she paid her bill
Returned to work to scrub the floor and wash the plates
She knew that she would soon begin to show
She prayed to Mary, her hopes were great
Then on that morning six months later
As she began to scrub the stairs
A pain came clawing into her guts
She knew the thing would soon be there

She worked until after ten
She could not give birth in peace until the household slept
Then she bore a son like any mother's son
While she, now a mother, wept

For she was not like other mothers are
But there are no valid grounds why we should mock her
Then the child began to cry
Which vexed her, so she said
She beat it with her fists both blind and wild
Til it was quiet and it was dead
She took the body into bed
Slept with it for the rest of the night
And in the morning when the household was out
She hid it in the laundry shed where it was out of sight

Marie Farrar died in a penitentiary
An unwed mother judged by law
And she will show how all that lives, lives frailly
And you who bear your sons in laundered linen sheets
And speak of your pregnancies as a blessed state
She never damned the outcast and the weak
Her sin was heavy, her sorrow great
Her sin was heavy, her sorrow great