“I will forgive them, I will forgive them,
When they repent and believe;
Let them now return to thee, and be reconciled to me,
And salvation they all shall receive.”
This song occurs also in Olive Leaf, p. 203, where it is called “a Scotch air”. Miss Gilchrist tells us, in the article often cited here, that ‘Saw Ye My Savior’ is ‘Saw Ye My Father’, or ‘The Grey Cock’, found in both Scotch and English versions. A text is in Herd’s collections of 1769 and 1772, and another with the tune, in Chappell’s Popular Music. Chappell’s version begins:
Saw you my father, saw you my mother,
Saw you my true love John?
He told his only dear that he would soon be here,
But he to another is gone.
The melodic phrase above, which coincides with the text “Oh ... me”, is used to build up the tune for ‘Simple Ploughboy’, Sharp, i., 369. As to the influence of this impressive text on the crucifixion songs of the negroes, see White Spirituals, 277. Stephen Foster seems to have been influenced by the ‘Saw Ye My Savior’ tune or its secular relatives in composing his ‘Old Black Joe’. (See my article in The Musical Quarterly, xxii., No. 2.) For further references as to ‘The Grey Cock’ see British Ballads from Maine, 310ff.