Foster – Hard Times Come Again No More

Song Information

Title: Hard Times Come Again No More

Music: Stephen Foster (1826-1864)

Text: Stephen Foster (1826-1864)

Sheet Music

Free at Art Song Central:

  • PDF: Hard Times Come Again No More
    • Key: C Major
    • Range: C4 – C5
    • Note: Solo voice only, converted and transposed from the Mutopia edition below.

Elsewhere on the Internet:

  • Transcribed at Mutopia: Hard Times Come Again No More
    • Key: PDF available in E♭ Major
    • Range: E♭4 – E♭5
    • Lilypond source file also available to edit or transpose.
    • Note: This is a particularly attractive edition.

Audio Files

Mp3:

MIDI:

Song Text

Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears,
While we all sup sorrow with the poor;
There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears;
Oh Hard times come again no more.

Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard Times, hard times, come again no more
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh hard times come again no more.

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.

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 hard times come again no more.

Tis a sigh that 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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