Bluegrass Messengers

Trees They Do Grow High- Beverley (Linc) 1905 Grainger

[From Percy Grainger Manuscript Collection (PG/2/47). MS give half of the first stanza- then skips to the end on the next page - page missing?

This appears to be based on the standard Such broadside but is poorly remembered.

R. Matteson 2016]


The Trees They Do Grow High - Mr. Beverley of Brigg, Lincolnshire on 5 Sept., 1905. Collector: Grainger, Percy. Granger adds "Beverly is 70, was malster 20 years- from Grayingham, Kerton."

The trees they do grow high, and the leaves they do grow green,
The days gone and past, my love, what you and I have seen.
[1]

At the age of sixteen he was a married man,
At the age of seventeen she brought[2] to him a son,
At the age of eighteen his grave was growing green, my lads,
Cruel death put an end to his growing.

She made him a shroud of the holland and so brown,
With all [the time] she was making it the tears come trinkelin' down,
"I had a sweetheart, but now I hae ne'er a one,
So fare you well, my bonny lad, for ever."

And now he's dead and in his grave doth lie,
The green [grass] that grows over him it grows so very high;
"I once had a sweetheart, but now I hae ne'er a one[3],
So fare you well, my bonny lad, for ever."

1. missing after 1st half of stanza 1 (page missing?)
2. MS has bore and brought? Informant probably sang brought.
3. This repeats as in last stanzas but it usually is different.