LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,114)
  • Text Authors (19,495)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

×

Attention! Some of this material is not in the public domain.

It is illegal to copy and distribute our copyright-protected material without permission. It is also illegal to reprint copyright texts or translations without the name of the author or translator.

To inquire about permissions and rates, contact Emily Ezust at licenses@email.lieder.example.net

If you wish to reprint translations, please make sure you include the names of the translators in your email. They are below each translation.

Note: You must use the copyright symbol © when you reprint copyright-protected material.

by Stephen Collins Foster (1826 - 1864)
Translation © by Antonio Zencovich

Old Black Joe
Language: English 
Our translations:  ITA
Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay,
Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away,
Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe."
CHORUS
 I'm coming, I'm coming, for my head is bending low:
 I hear those gentle voices calling, "Old Black Joe."

Why do I weep when my heart should feel no pain,
Why do I sigh that my friends come not again,
Grieving for forms now departed long ago?
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe."
(CHORUS)

Where are the hearts once so happy and so free?
The children so dear that I held upon my knee,
Gone to the shore where my soul has longed to go,
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe."
(CHORUS)

Text Authorship:

  • by Stephen Collins Foster (1826 - 1864) [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Stephen Collins Foster (1826 - 1864), "Old Black Joe", 1860. [
     text verified 1 time
    ]

Available translations, adaptations, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • ITA Italian (Italiano) (Antonio Zencovich) , title 1: "Vecchio negro Joe", copyright © 2014, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this page: T. P. (Peter) Perrin

This text was added to the website: 2011-11-10
Line count: 17
Word count: 142

Vecchio negro Joe
Language: Italian (Italiano)  after the English 
Sono passati i giorni in cui il mio cuore era giovane e allegro,
sono andati via i miei amici dai campi di cotone,
partiti da questa terra verso un’altra migliore, lo so.
Sento le loro dolci voci chiamarmi: “Vieni, vecchio negro Joe!”
CORO:
 Vengo, vengo, perché il mio capo si sta chinando in giù.
 Sento quelle dolci voci chiamarmi: “Vieni, vecchio negro Joe!”

Perché piango, quando il mio cuore non dovrebbe provare pena,
perché sospiro, se i miei amici non tornano più,
addolorandomi per volti scomparsi da tanto?
Sento le loro dolci voci chiamarmi: “Vieni, vecchio negro Joe!”
(CORO)

Dove sono i cuori un tempo così felici e liberi?
I bambini tanto cari che tenevo sulle mie ginocchia,
fuggiti sulla riva dove la mia anima ha sempre desiderato di andare?
Sento le loro dolci voci chiamarmi: “Vieni, vecchio negro Joe!”
(CORO)

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from English to Italian (Italiano) copyright © 2014 by Antonio Zencovich, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
    Contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net

Based on:

  • a text in English by Stephen Collins Foster (1826 - 1864)
    • Go to the text page.

 

This text was added to the website: 2014-03-24
Line count: 17
Word count: 145

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris