I first heard this from Molly Scott in the 1960's. It's from Stephen Vincent Benet's John Brown's Body. Melora Vilas has taken in a wounded Yankee soldier, Jack Elliott, nursed him back to health and, when he leaves to return to the war, she is carrying their child. The poem was put to music by Fenno Heath, long-time director of the Yab Glee Club. I taught Ann the song in 1963, and she has made it a real gem with her harp accompaniment. (ET)
Love came by on the river smoke
When the leaves were fresh on the trees,
But I cut my heart on the blackjack oak
Before it fell on me.
The leaves are green in the early spring;
They're brown as linsey now.
I did not ask for a wedding ring
From the wind in the bending bough.
Lightly, lightly, leaves of the wild
Fall lightly on my care.
I'm not the first to go with child
Because of the blowing air.
Cold and cold and cold again,
Cold in the blackjack's limb,
With the winds at the sky for his
sponsor-men
And a bird to christen him.
Snow down, snow down, you white
feather bird,
Snow down, you winter storm,
Where the good girl sleeps with the
Gospel word
To keep her honor warm.
Good girls sleep with their modesty;
Bad girls sleep in their shame,
But I must sleep in a hollow tree
Till my child can have a name.
I'll feed him milk out of my own breast,
And call him Whistling Jack,
And his dad will bring him a partridge
nest,
As soon as his dad comes back.
He's going to act like a hound let loose
When he comes from the blackjack tree.
He's going to walk in proud, proud shoes
All over Tennessee.