Come Raise Me in Your Arms, Dear Brother
(E. Bowers and P. B. Isaacs)

Come raise me in your arms, dear brother,
And let me see that glorious sun,
For I am weary, faint, and dying,
How could that battle lost or won.

I remember you, my brother,
Sent to me that fatal dart;
Brothers fighting against brothers,
Well, 'tis well that thus they part.

Father fighting for the Union ,
You will meet him on the field;
How could you raise your hand to smite him,
How could you bid our father yield?

He who loved us in our childhood,
Taught us infant prayers we said;
Brother, I am surely dying,
Shall soon be numbered with the dead ,

Do you ever think of mother
In that home far in the land?
Watching, praying for her children,
If I could see that home again!

Write a letter to my mother,
Send it when her boy is dead;
That he perished by his brother,
Not one word of that be said.

Brother, take from me a warning,
Keep that secret you have won,
For it would kill our aged old mother
If she knew what you have done.

From Ozark Folksongs
Collected from Doney Hammontree, ARK, 1941
Recorded by Charlie Poole, Roy Harvey, Charles Nabell
RG
apr96