525. Departed Loved Ones
525
Departed Loved Ones
Marie Campbell, in "Funeral Ballads of the Kentucky Mountains," SFLQ iii 112, prints a text of this hymn, obtained in 1933 from the singing of an eighty-one-year-old woman, who "said she could not remember when her family had not 'knowed that air ballet pine-blank like I done sung hit.' "
'Departed Loved Ones.' From MS book of songs lent to Dr. Brown in August 1936 by Miss Lura Wagoner, Vox, Alleghany county. Several of the songs were dated, some 1911, some 1913.
1. Is it wrong to wish to meet them
Who were dear to us in life?
Shall we check the rising sadness
Since they're free from toil and strife?
2. I've a mother up in heaven,
And oh, tell me if you will.
Will my mother know her children
When to glory they will go?
3. Does she watch me from those windows
While I'm on this distant shore?
Will she know when I am going?
Will she meet me at the door?
4. I've a father, too, in glory,
And oh, tell me if you know.
Will my father know his children
When we meet on Canaan's shore?
5. In that land are saintly children
Who are happy now and free.
Shall we ever reach those mansions,
All those darling ones to see?