Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)

Heart-carved tree trunk, Yankee bayonet

A sweetheart left behind

Far from the hills of the sea-swelled Carolinas

That's where my true love lies

Look for me when the sun-bright swallow

Sings upon the birch bough high

But you are in the ground with the voles and the weevils

All a'chew upon your bones so dry

But when the sun breaks

To no more bullets in Battle Creek

Then will you make a grave

For I will be home then

I will be home then

I will be home then

I will be home then

Then

When I was a girl how the hills of Oconee

Made a seam to hem me in

There at the fair when our eyes caught, careless

Got my heart right pierced by a pin

But oh, did you see all the dead of Manassas

All the bellies and the bones and the bile

No, I lingered here with the blankets barren

And my own belly big with child

But when the sun breaks

To no more bullets in Battle Creek

Then will you make a grave

For I will be home then

I will be home then

I will be home then

I will be home then

Stems and bones and stone walls too

Could keep me from you

Skein of skin is all too few

To keep me from you

But oh my love, though our bodies may be parted

Though our skin may not touch skin

Look for me with the sun-bright sparrow

I will come on the breath of the wind