March 2025: Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still

Submitted by Lafayette Matthews

Heather Wood, musing in the liner notes of Poor Old Horse’s album The Curate’s Egg, called “Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still” an “evocative song of love lost.” For such a short song, it packs a wallop of emotion and borderline-supernatural imagery befitting the dreary thoughts of a nineteenth-century sailor on the night watch. 

“Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still” was written by J.E. Carpenter and set to music by W.T. Wrighton around 1864. It was then collected by Frank and Anne Warner from sisters Eleazar Tillett and Martha Etheridge on the Outer Banks of North Carolina in 1951. 

Listen to Poor Old Horse (Heather Wood, Tom Gibney, and David Jones) performing their version of “Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still:”

Lyrics: Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still

W.T. Wrighton, J.E. Carpenter
As Sung by Poor Old Horse

It’s been a year since last we met
We may never meet again
I have struggled to forget
But the struggle was in vain
For her voice lives on the breeze
Her spirit comes at will
In the midnight on the seas, her bright smile haunts me still
In the midnight on the seas, her bright smile haunts me still

I have sailed the seven seas
I have weathered winter’s blast
I have seen the storm arise
Like a giant in his wrath
Every danger I have known
That a reckless life can yield
Though her presence is now flown, her bright smile haunts me still
Though her presence is now flown, her bright smile haunts me still

At the first grey dawn of light
When I gaze upon the deep
Her form still greets my sight
While the stars their vigil keep
When I close my aching eyes
Sweet dreams my memory fill
And from sleep when I arise, her bright smile haunts me still
And from sleep when I arise, her bright smile haunts me still

Lafayette Matthews is a singer from Virginia, currently living in New York City. He sings with Jules Peiperl and Lindsey Smith as The Ranzo Boys.