My baby's gone and I don't know why She let out this morning Like a rusty shot in a hollow sky Left me without warning Sooner than the dogs could bark And faster than the sun rose Down to the banks in an old mule car She took a flatboat across the shallow
Chorus: Left me in my tears to drown She left a baby daughter Now the water's wide and deep and brown She's crossing muddy waters
Tobacco standing in the fields Be rotten come november And a bitter heart will not reveal A spring that love remembers When that sweet brown girl of mine Her black eyes are ravens We broke the bread and drank the wine From a jug that she'd been saving
Chorus
Baby's crying and the daylight's gone That big oak tree is groaning In rush of wind and river of song I can hear my sweetheart moaning Crying for her baby child Or crying for her husband Crying for that river's wild To take her from her loved ones.