University of Virginia Library

Search this document 

100

OLD BLACK JOE.

[_]

The following poem is scored for music in the source text.

[1]

Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay,
Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away,
Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe.”

CHORUS.

I'm coming, I'm coming, for my head is bending low:
I hear those gentle voices calling, “Old Black Joe.”

[2]

Why do I weep when my heart should feel no pain
Why do I sigh that my friends come not again,
Grieving for forms Now departed long ago?
I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe.”

[3]

Where are the hearts once so happy and so free?
The children so dear that I held upon my knee,
Gone to the shore where my soul has longed to go.
I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe.”