Crammed in like cattle on a diat of biscuits and water. <br />Straight out of Newgate like lambs being led to slaughter. <br />Sentenced to deportation for stealing a loaf of bread, but <br />trufully they would have been off dead. <br />If the sea did not get them the the journey would, but they <br />only stole for their livelyhood. <br />Sea sickness, fever and on rolled the waves, in a great wide <br />ocean and to some it became their graves. Not one of them knowing <br />what the journey would unfold, but these were child convicts and <br />they had to do what they were told. <br />This a journey that took months if not a year, and in all that time <br />living in constant fear. The fear of being birched and left with <br />marks and at the end of it all, was the question of sharks. <br />Nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, just constanly sick as the <br />ship rolled from side to side. Waves so high almost touching <br />the sky, and what came next; just do or die. <br />The Mother Land seemed so far way, but with hope in their hearts <br />they would return someday. <br />A far distant shore and a convict branded, but that never bothered <br />the few that had landed. <br />A strange land, a baron land and no one there to lend a hand. <br />They done the crime so they had to do their time, from six in the <br />morning untill way past nine. <br />Treated like slaves on a far distant shore, Im'e sure God forgave <br />them for breaking the law.<br /><br />sylvia spencer<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-convict-branded/
