Trees They Do Grow High- Stephen Spooner (Sus) 1911 Carey
[From: Clive Carey Manuscript Collection (CC/1/128) also The Folk Handbook: Working with Songs from the English Tradition by John Morrish - 2007.
R. Matteson 2016]
THE TREES THEY DO GROW HIGH- from Stephen Spooner, of Midhurst Union, Sussex on Oct. 18, 1911[1] collected Clive Carey
The trees they do grow high, and the leaves they do grow green,
The days are gone and past, love, which you and I have seen.
Saying, once I had a true love, but now I've got ne'er a one,
So fare you well, my bonny lad, for ever.
"Oh father, dear father, you've done me much harm,
You've married me to a young man that were so very young."
"Oh daughter, dear daughter, if you'll only lie alone,
A lady you shall be while he's a-growing.
"I'll send him to some college for one year or two,
That in a short time he might do for you.
I'll buy him some white ribbon to tie all round his bonny waist,
To let the ladies know that he's married."
She had not been away from her own true love six months,
She went up to his college, she looked over the wall,
Where four and twenty young men were playing at the ball,
She enquired for her own true love, but they would not let him go alone,
Because he was too young and a-growing.
At the age of fourteen, he were a married man,
At the age of sixteen, he was father of a son,
At the age of eighteen, Oh, his grave was growing green,
And that put an end to his growing.
I'll make him a shroud of the holland so fine,
And all the the while I'm making it the tears were in my eyes,
Saying, once I had a true love, but now I've got ne'er a one,
So fare you well, my bonny lad, for ever.
1. a different date appears in the Folksingers workbook (Sept. 1911)