Pour, O pour that parting soul in song, O pour it in the saw-dust glow of night, Into the velvet pine-smoke air to-night, And let the valley carry it along, And let the valley carry it along.

O land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree, So scant of grass, so profligate of pines, Now just before an epoch’s sun declines Thy son, in time, I have returned to thee, Thy son, I have in time returned to thee.

In time, although the sun is setting on A song-lit race of slaves, it has not set; Though late, O soil, it is not too late yet To catch thy plaintive soul, leaving, soon gone, Leaving, to catch thy plaintive soul soon gone.

O Negro slaves, dark purple ripened plums, Squeezed, and bursting in the pine-wood air, Passing, before they strip the old tree bare One plum was saved for me, one seed becomes

An everlasting song, a singing tree, Caroling softly souls of slavery, What they were, and what they are to me, Carolling softly souls of slavery.