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Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay,
Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away,
Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe."

— Stephen Foster

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More quotes by Stephen Foster

All the world is sad and dreary,
Everywhere I roam.

I jumped aboard de telegraph,
And trabbled down de riber,
De lectric fluid magnified,
And killed five hundred nigger.

Oh! Susanna (1848)

Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me
For I come from Alabama,
With my banjo on my knee.

Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee;
Sounds of the rude world heard in the day,
Lull'd by the moonlight have all pass'd away.

The day goes by like a shadow o’er the heart,
With sorrow where all was delight;
The time has come when the darkies have to part:
Then my old Kentucky home, good night!

All Stephen Foster quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Stephen Foster (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.