Carry Me Back to Old Virginny
Carry Me Back to Old Virginny
Original Text
Messerli, Douglas. Listen to the Mockingbird: American Folksongs and Popular Music Lyrics of the 19th Century (Los Angeles, CA: Green Integer, 2006).
1Carry me back to old Virginny,
2There's where the cotton and the corn and tatoes grow,
3There's where the birds warble sweet in the spring-time,
4There's where the old darkey's heart am long'd to go,
5There's where I labored so hard for old massa,
6Day after day in the field of yellow corn,
7No place on earth do I love more sincerely
8Than old Virginny, the state where I was born.
9
10Chorus:
11Carry me back to old Virginny,
12There's where the cotton and the corn and tatoes grow,
13There's where the birds warble sweet in the spring-time,
14There's where the old darkey's heart am long'd to go.
15
16Carry me back to old Virginny,
17There let me live 'till I wither and decay,
18Long by the old Dismal Swamp have I wandered,
19There's where the old darkey's life will pass away.
20Massa and missis have long gone before me,
21Soon we will meet on that bright and golden shore,
22There we'll be happy and free from all sorrow,
23There's where we'll meet and we'll never part no more.
24
25Chorus
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2009
Rhyme
Form