My baby's gone and I don't know why
She let out this morning
Like a rusty shot in a hollow sky
She left me without warning
Sooner than the dogs could bark
and faster than the sun rose
Down to the banks on an old mule cart
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 hair black as a raven
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 a river of song
I can hear my true love moaning
Crying for a baby child
oh crying for her husband
Crying for that river's wild
to take her from her loved ones