When the wailing forest grieves,
I shall depart.

When are garnered grain and fruit,
When all insect life is mute,
I shall drop my broken lute;
I shall depart.

When the fields are brown and bare,
Nothing left that's good or fair,
And the hoar-frost gathers there,
I shall depart.

Not with you, O songsters, no!
To no Southern clime I go,--
By a way none living know
I shall depart.

Many aching hearts may yearn,
Many lamps till midnight burn,
But I never shall return,
When I depart.

Trembling, fearing, sorely tried,
Waiting for the ebbing tide,
Who, oh! who will be my guide
When I depart?

Once the river cold and black
Rolled its waves affrighted back,--