To Deckman,

The version in George Pullen Jackson's White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands (1933; Dover, 1965, p. 271) is from DT 169 (Dett, Religious Folk-Songs of the Negro, 1927, p, 169) and is tilted "Poor Pilgrim", which is as follows:

POOR PILGRIM

1. I am a poor wayfaring stranger,
I sometimes know not where to raom;
I heard of a city called heaven,
I'm striving to make it my home.

2. Sometimes I'm both tossed and driven,
I sometimes know not where to raom;
I heard of a city called heaven,
I'm striving to make it my home.

3. My friends and relations forsake me,
And troubles roll round me so high;
I thought of the kind voice of Jesus,
Saying "Poor pilgrim, I'm always nigh."

The Traditional Ballad Index has this entry:

Tossed and Driven (The Poor Pilgrim)
DESCRIPTION: "I am a poor pilgrim of sorrow, I am left in this wide world to roam... I've started to make Heaven my home." "Sometimes I'm so tossed and driven. Sometimes I know not where to roam." The singer has left his family; after death he hopes to see them again
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1926
KEYWORDS: religious death travel
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation): Randolph 610, "Tossed and Driven" (2 texts, 1 tune)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "I Am a Pilgrim"
Notes: This song instantly made me think of "Man of Constant Sorrow," and also of "Wayfaring Stranger," but I cannot tell if there is any connection. And "pilgrim" songs all sound alike somehow. - RBW
File: R610
(The Ballad Index Copyright 2000 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.)

~Masato