Baby's gone and I don't know why   She let out this morning   Like a rusty shot in a hollow sky   She left me without warning      Sooner than the dogs could bark   Faster than the sun rose   Down to the banks on an old mule car   She took a flatboat 'cross the shallow      Left me in my tears to drown   She left a baby daughter   Now the river's wide and deep and brown   She's crossing muddy waters      Tobacco standing in the fields   Be rotten, come November   And a bitter heart will not reveal   A spring that love remembers      When that sweet brown girl of mine   Hair, black eyes are raven   We broke the bread and drank the wine   From a jug that she'd been saving      Left me in my tears to drown   She left a baby daughter   Now the river's wide and deep and brown   And she's crossing muddy waters      Baby's crying and the daylight's gone   That big oak tree is groaning   In a rush of wind and a river of song   I can hear my true love moaning      Crying for her baby child   Or crying for her husband   Crying for that rivers wild   To take her from her loved ones      Left me in my tears to drown   She left a baby daughter   Now the river's wide and deep and brown   And she's crossing muddy waters      Now the river's wide and deep and brown   And she's crossing muddy waters