Sweet prospects, sweet birds, and sweet flowers
Have all lost their sweetness to me,
Have all lost their sweetness to me.
The tune is attributed, in the Sacred Harp, to J. T. White, a Georgian, and is dated 1844. It is a variant of ‘When the Cock Crows it is Day’, Petrie, No. 478. The fuller text, attributed to John Newton, is given under the song ‘[Green Fields]’ in this collection.
From its first appearance in 1835 up to the time of the Civil War, 600,000 copies of The Southern Harmony went into southern homes. Twenty-four songs from this book are in the present collection.
One Hundred and one Revival Spiritual Songs
William (Singin’ Billy) Walker, of Spartanburg, South Carolina, was perhaps the foremost among those singing masters who welded folk to folk-song. In all his singing schools throughout the southeastern states his handbook was his own excellent collection of spiritual folk-tunes, The Southern Harmony.
