Christians both one and all
Come pay attention unto my call
Until you hear my doleful tragedy
Of these two brothers all in Americay
James and Patrick Masterson
In Ballymena were reared most tenderly
But mark what followed without delay
For the war broke out on a woeful day
To take up arms they were
Through fatigue and hardships
With savage blocks they could not agree
They were punished severely
And often flogged till left in their gore
They left lamenting and to shed a tear
To desert this regiment they were inclined
For to reach the north they
By nighted travel for to make their way
And in the woods they lay,
For three long days they could not be found
At length the picket did them
They were taken prisoners with
By a court martial as you soon shall hear
Their sentence was to be flogged severe
When Patrick Masterson got loose that day
He shot the colonel without delay
The guards immediately did him surround
Been tried and sentenced and guilty found
A scaffold now erected in the square
And his brother pitched upon,
James Masterson was called immediately
To hang his brother he would
"Before I'd yield to such
Will die beside him on a gallows tree"
Now all being ready he stood on the fall
And James he shot him with a pistol ball
And hanged that day on a gallows high
Fare well Ould Ireland our native home
From friends and parents far far away
They have suffered death and curse in
4.7
