Hush now, don’t you wake up

We’ll be leaving at first light

Mama's buying you a mockingbird

To lull you through the night

Across the Dan by morning

Here’s a blanket for you to share

They’re building down in Georgia

Daddy hears he’ll find work there

And the mockingbird can sing like the crying of the dove

And I can’t tell my daughters all the things that I am scared of

But I am not afraid of that bright glory up above

Dying’s just another way to lead the ones you love

No work for the working man

Just one more empty mill

Hard times in Rockingham

Hard times harder still

The crows are in the kitchen

The wolves at the door

Our father's land of Eden

Is paradise no more

And the mockingbird can sing like the crying of the dove

And I can’t tell my daughters all the things that I am scared of

But I am not afraid of that bright glory up above

Dying’s just another way to lead the ones you love

My sister stayed in Eden

Her husband’s got some land

An agent for the county

Thinks that they might make a stand

A hard life full of working

With nothing much to show

A long life of leaving

With nowhere to go

And the mockingbird can sing like the crying of the dove

And I can’t tell my daughters all the things that I am scared of

But I am not afraid of that bright glory up above

Dying’s just another way to lead the ones you love