Hard Times Come Again No More

Stephen Foster attended a black church as a child with his family's nurse. Some of the hymns he heard as a child were the basis for later songs that he composed. This is one of those songs that had its roots in that black church. It was also the songs that Stephen Foster sang very often in the last years of his life. Background music is in the key of C.

 4  -4   5    5   5      5    6
Let us pause in Life's pleas-ures

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and count its man-y tears.

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While we all sup sor-row with the poor:

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There's a song that will lin-ger

 5  -4  4  4 -4   5
for-ev-er in our ears;

-6    6    5     
Oh! Hard Times,

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come a-gain no more.

chorus

  5  -5    6   
'Tis the song,

 6    6  -5  6  -6  6
the sigh of the wea-ry;

  7    6     -6    6    
Hard Times, Hard Times

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come a-gain no more;

 4 -4   5   5    5   5    6
Man-y days you have lin-gered

5   -4   4  4  -4   5
a-round my cab-in door;

-6    6    5    
Oh! Hard Times,

  5  4  -4  -4   4
come a-gain no more.

verse 2
While we seek mirth and beauty, and music light and gay,
There are frail forms fainting at the door
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say,
Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

verse 3
There's a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away,
With a worn heart whose better days are o'er;
Though her voice would be merry, 'tis sighing all the day,
Oh! Har Times, come again no more.

verse 4
'Tis a sigh hat is wafted across the troubled wave,
'Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore,
'Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave,
Oh! Hard Times, come again no more.

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