There's a famous song book called "Rise Up Singing."
That expression appears in the lyric of Summertime, from Porgy and Bess. I wonder whether that's the whole story of the phrase (it was created by Gershwin), or whether the phrase has a longer history, such as (for example) use in actual folk music or spirituals.
As far as I know, that specific phrase does indeed originate with "Summertime." It's a peculiarity of lullabies that they are intended to comfort infants, and yet many of them deal with dark and morbid themes. In this case, the phrase "rise up singing" is a description of death as a joyful release from life, so the song is really an Ecclesiastes-like juxtaposition of the sensual pleasures of "now" giving way to the inevitability of mortality.
Summertime, and the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high
Oh, your daddy's rich and your ma is good-lookin'
So hush, little baby, don't you cryOne of these mornings you're gonna rise up singing
And you'll spread your wings and you'll take to the sky
But till that morning, there ain't nothin' can harm you
With daddy and mammy standin' by
This lyric was written by DuBose Heyward (music by George Gershwin) in direct imitation of black American spirituals and lullabies. The theme of death-as-release is particularly common in slave-era spirituals, where the brutal wretchedness of life as a slave was often contrasted to hopes for a better afterlife. (Compare also the similar lyrics in "I'll Fly Away" and "Walk around Heaven" --among churchgoing black Americans, funerals are still most often referred to as "homegoing celebrations.")
A particular inspiration for "Summertime" is said to be the more authentic lullaby "All My Trials", which does share this central theme:
Hush little baby, don't you cry,
You know your mother was born to die
All my trials, Lord, soon be over
Too late my brothers, too late
But never mind
All my trials, Lord soon be over
Another potential inspiration is the well-known lullaby "All the Pretty Little Horses," which, like "Summertime", is said to be narrated by a slave woman to her master's pampered child. "Pretty Horses" has a particularly dark additional subtext in which the narrator describes how her own child must be neglected as she is forced to care for another mother's child instead. A lot of the power and appeal of both songs is the sense of a well of pain and suffering underlying superficially celebratory lyrics.
Hush a bye, don't you cry,
Go to sleep you little baby. when you wake you shall have all the pretty little horses..Way down yonder
In the meadow
Poor little baby crying "Mammy!"
Birds and butterflies
pecking out his eyes
Poor little baby crying "Mammy!"
All these songs can be found in that excellent collection of which you speak.
