Songs We Like to Sing

Published 1912 Old Black Joe
Stephen C. Foster

Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay;
Gone are my friends from the cottonfields away;
Gone from the earth to a better land, I know,

Chorus:
I hear their gentle voices calling,
"Old Black Joe."
I'm coming, I'm coming,
For my head is bending low;
I hear those 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 again,
Grieving for forms now departed long ago?

chorus

Where are the hearts once so happy and so free?
The children so dea, that I held upon my knee?
Gone to the shore where my soul has long'd to go,

chorus