Mouldering Vine, The

DESCRIPTION: "Hail! ye sighing sons of sorrow, Come learn with me your certain doom; Learn with me what's your fate tomorrow, Dead and perhaps laid in the tomb." Life should bring "to our mind the mouldering vine." People are dying; trees are dying; you are next
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1837 (William Caldwell's _Union Harmony_, according to McNeil)
KEYWORDS: death religious nonballad
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
McNeil-SouthernMountainFolksong, pp. 120-121, "Sons of Sorrow" (1 text, 1 tune)
MidwestFolklore, Mary O. Eddy, "Twenty Folk Hymns," Volume 3, Number 1 (Spring 1953), p. 44, "Italy 8's and 7's" (1 excerpt, 1 tune)
Roud #13950
NOTES [81 words]: Cheerful guy. - RBW
The verse of Eddy's text "Italy" runs
Former friends how oft I've sought them,
Just to cheer a troubled mind,
Now they're gone like leaves of autumn,
Driven before the dreary wind....
This verse occurs in only a few texts of "The Mouldering Vine," according the the records at hymnary.org, and is usually one of the later verses. But it doesn't seem to occur in any other hymn, so I have filed the Eddy piece here. I suspect it was a later addition to the text, though.
Last updated in version 6.8
File: MSMF120

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