Sons of Sorrow

Hail! ye sighing sons of sorrow;
Come learn with me your certain doom;
Learn with me what's your fate tomorrow
Dead and perhaps laid in the tomb!
See all nature fading, dying!
Silent, all things seem to pine;
Life from vegetation flying,
Brings to our mind the mouldering vine.

Lo! in yonder forest standing,
Those lofty cedars; see them nod!
Scenes of nature, how surprising!
But read, in nature, nature's God.
While the annual frosts is cropping
Leaves and tendrils from the trees,
So our friends are yearly dropping
We are but like to one of these.

From Southern Mountain Folksongs, McNeil
Collected from Almeda Riddle
see also What's the Life of a Man for similar theme
RG
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