No. 22 Mouldering Vine, Uh 101
Heptatonic aeolian, mode 4 a + b (I II 3 IV V 6 7)
Hail! ye sighing sons of sorrow,
Learn from me your certain doom;
Learn from me your fate tomorrow,
Dead perhaps laid in your tomb.
See all nature fading,
dying, silent all things seem to pine;
Life from vegetation flying,
Brings to mind the mould’ring vine!
See in yonder forest standing
Lofty cedars, how they nod!
Scenes of nature how surprising,
Read in nature, nature’s God.
Whilst the annual frosts are cropping
Leaves and tendrils from the trees,
So, our friends are early dropping,
We are like to one of these.
Hollow winds about me roaring,
Noisy waters round me rise,
Whilst I sit my fate deploring,
Tears fast streaming from mine eyes.
What to me is autumn’s treasure,
Since I know no earthly joy?
Long I’ve lost all youthful pleasure,
Time must youth and health destroy.
The tune was recorded, from oral tradition evidently, by William Caldwell (of eastern Tennessee) in the 1830’s. His source was doubtless some variant of ‘Banks of Inverary’. Cf. JFSS, viii., 198.
The unique opening melodic phrase is to be found also in ‘Young Beeham’ or ‘Ship’s Carpenter’, Cox 528. Another tune variant in the fasola environment is ‘Sons of Sorrow’, OSH 332.