When I was still a little boy, my mother would tell her son
About the sad and lamentable tale of the ghost of one
You see, James was a poor boy and he must've been about twenty-three
He loved a young and pretty girl like none you ever did see
Like none you ever did see...

He lived out in a bayou shack and worked the lone ferry
The love of this Louisiana boy went by the name of Mary
He doted on this fair maiden for what must've been about a year
When one evening as the heavy sun set she was lost in the twilight air
Lost in the twilight air...

Oh, Mary, Mary, why did you leave?
How I long to see your face ambling through the trees
Oh, Mary, Mary, why did you go?
Searching for the one I love far from her home

All James found was a crumpled note that read meet me by the tree
Though there wasn't a name, he knew what it meant and his heart was filled with misery
So on foot he slipped into the woods to pursue the one who'd bereaved him
And he thought he'd glimpsed Mary's face, though the daylight it grew dim
The daylight it grew dim...

He tracked her down to the waterside where the cypress trees stand tall
And their initials carved there into a trunk were scarred by an alligator's claw
But at his feet in the stillwater swamp the turbid water left him stunned
For the only sign of his dear Mary was a footprint in the mud
A final footprint in the mud...

Oh, Mary, Mary, why did you leave?
How I long to see your face ambling through the trees
Oh, Mary, Mary, why did you go?
Searching for the ghost of one far from her home

But James he wasn't one to give up yet so he loosed the lone ferry
And set off downriver through the reeds and the grass to look for poor Mary
As the wind died down, the bugs came out, and the river water it rose high
And with oppressive gleam through the solemn trees rose a full moon in the sky
A full moon in the sky...

The suffocating heat of the swamp seemed to set aflame the spanish moss
And without a sign of his dear Mary, James realized he was lost
To raven's cry and barred owl's shriek there on a foresaken shore
He laid himself as if to rest, though never to rise no more

Oh, Mary, Mary, why did you leave?
How I long to see your face ambling through the trees
Oh, Mary, Mary, why did you go?
Now I am the ghost of one far from his home