Edgar Lee Masters - Mrs. Merritt lyrics

SILENT before the jury Returning no word to the judge when he asked me If I had aught to say against the sentence, Only shaking my head. What could I say to people who thought That a woman of thirty-five was at fault When her lover of nineteen k**ed her husband? Even though she had said to him over and over, "Go away, Elmer, go far away, I have maddened your brain with the gift of my body: You will do some terrible thing." And just as I feared, he k**ed my husband; With which I had nothing to do, before God Silent for thirty years in prison And the iron gates of Joliet Swung as the gray and silent trusties Carried me out in a coffin.