ADDRESSED TO MY WIFE FROM THE KING’S BENCH
PRISON, MAY 15, 1820.
I NEVER will forget thee, love!
Though in a prison far I be;
I never will forget thee, love!
And thou wilt still remember me!
I never will forget thee, love!
When wakes on me the morning light;
And thou shalt ever present be,
When cometh down the cloud of night!
I never will forget thee, love!
When summer sheds her golden ray;
And thou shall be my comforter
Amid the winter’s cheerless day!
Oh! they may bind but cannot break,
This heart, so full of thine and thee;
Which liveth only for YOUR sake,
And the high cause of LIBERTY!
— Samuel Bamford
Poet and labor activist Samuel Bamford campaigned for parliamentary reform and universal suffrage. In August 1819, after the Peterloo Massacre, where the English military ran the cavalry into a crowd of 60,000 gathered to demand a repeal of the Corn Laws, he was charged for “assembling with unlawful banners at an unlawful meeting for the purpose of inciting discontent.” He was sentenced to a year in Lincoln jail.
