Meet Me by the Moonlight

I am going to leave you tomorrow,
To sail on the ocean so blue,
To leave all my friends and relations;
I have come now to bid you adieu.

Then meet me by the moonlight, love, meet me;
I want to see you alone,
To tell of the heart that is breaking
To leave my love and my home.

I hate to leave you, my darling;
But my parents to me are unkind.
To prove false words that are spoken
Has never once entered my mind.

I have a fine ship on the ocean
All lined with silver and gold,
And before my lover shall perish
I'll have that ship anchored and sold.

I have come by the moonlight to see you,
To tell of my future time.
I am going to seek for a fortune,
Will return and claim you for mine.

Your return to me is uncertain,
But to you I will ever be true.
God grant you may have a safe voyage
And our days apart may be few!

I know that heaven will bless us
And the angels will guide you aright,
To help you return to your loved one,
Though her heart is breaking tonight.

Years passed and she proved to him faithful,
To another she never was wed.
And her life it seemed blighted forever
When she heard that her true love was dead.


source: Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, Volume III, #350E

From the manuscripts of Obadiah Johnson of Crossnore, Avery county, NC. In this there is no mention or thought of a prison (as in "Prisoner's Song"), yet it is clearly a form of the same song as the four texts preceding.