Baby's gone and I don't know why
She let out this morning
Like a rusty shot in a hollow sky
She left me without warning
Sooner than the dogs could bark
And faster than the sun rose
Down to the banks on an old mule car
She took a flatboat across the shallows
Left me in my tears to drown
She left a baby daughter
Now the river's wide and deep and brown
And she's crossing muddy waters
Tobacco standing in the fields
Be rotten come November
And a bitter heart will not reveal
A spring that love remembers
When that sweet brown girl of mine
Hair black as a raven
We broke the bread and drank her wine
From a jug that she'd been saving
Baby's crying and the daylight's gone
That big oak tree is groaning
In a rush of wind and a river of song
I can hear my true love moaning
Crying for her baby child
Oh, crying for her husband
Crying for that river's wild
To take her from her loved ones
Now the river's wide and deep and brown
And she's crossing muddy waters
