2639654School Song Knapsack — Old Black JoeHenry Romaine Pattengill


Old Black Joe.[1]

(Pat's Pick, page 5.)

2 Sharps

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 their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe."

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."

Chorus—I'm coming, I'm coming, etc.

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 long'd to go.
I hear their gentle voices calling, "Old Black Joe."

Chorus—I'm coming, I'm coming, etc.

This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse

  1. [Published by permission of Wm. A. Pond & Co., owners of the copyright.]