All the Trees They are so High- Mrs. Mason (Devon) 1890 Baring-Gould MS
[My location, none given. From: Sabine Baring-Gould Manuscript Collection (SBG/2/2/290). From the program Words of Songs sung at first lecture "Ballad Music of the West of England" on 31 May, 1890 at the "Royal Institiution" Albermarle St.
The ballad is attributed to Mrs. Mason in the program. I assume it was Marianne Harriet Mason, 1845- 1932, who collected children's songs in Northumbia but also lived in Devon. Baring Gould, who had some correspondence with Mason, used these stanzas in his larger compilations (attributed to James Parsons) published in Songs of the West. It seems possible that this was recreated from tradition since some of the phrases (such as: huffle of the gale) are not traditional.
R. Matteson 2016]
All the Trees They Are So High- Mrs. Mason of Devon 1890, from a program Words of Songs sung at first lecture "Ballad Music of the West of England" on 31 May 1890 at the "Royal Institiution" on Albermarle St.
1. All the trees they are so high, and the leaves they are so green,
The day is past and gone, sweetheart, that you and I have seen.
It is cold winter's night, you and I must bide alone;
Whilst my pretty lad is young, And is growing.
2. O father, father dear, great wrong to me is done,
That I should married be this day, before the set of sun.
At the huffle of the gale, here I toss and cannot sleep:
Whilst my pretty lad is young, and is growing.
3. I married was, alas, a lady high to be,
In court and stall and stately ball, the bower of tapestry,
But the bell did only knell, and I shuddered as one cold:
When I wed the pretty lad, not done growing old.
4. At seventeen he wedded was, a father at eighteen,
At nineteen his face was white as milk, and then his grave was green;
And the daisies were outspread, and buttercups of gold,
O'er my pretty lad so young now ceased growing [old].