Trees They Do Grow High- William Smith (Heref) 1907 Butterworth A
[From: Lucy Broadwood Manuscript Collection (LEB/5/103)
Butterworth used this same text for other melodies (see: Mrs. Whiting 1908)
R. Matteson 2016]
The Trees They Do Grow High- William Smith, Stoke Lacy, Herefordshire in Sept., 1907. Collector: Butterworth, George
1. "The trees they do grow high, and the leaves they do grow green
The days are past and gone, my love, that you and I have seen,
On a cold winter's night my love, when we together have been,
So fare you well my bonny boy, forever."
2. "O father, O father to me you've done wrong,
You've married me to a bonny boy, a wealthy farmer's son,
For the boy he is sixteen and i am twenty-one,
And the bonny, bonny boy is young, and a-growing."
3. "O daughter, dear daughter, to you I will prove true,
I'll send your love to collage all for a year or two,
And I'll tie a bunch of ribbon's around his bonny, bonny waist,
To let the ladies all know that he's married,"
4. "As I went up to college I looked over the wall,
I saw four and twenty young men a-playing bat and ball,
I asked them for my time, love but they would not let him come,
For they said he was too young, and a-growing."
5. Then it's at the age of sixteen he was a married man,
And at the age of seventeen, the father of a son;
And at the age of eighteen green grass grew over him,
So sudden death put an end to his growing.
6. "Then I'll make my love a shroud of the best of holland brown,
And while that I am making it the tears they shall run down;
For once I had a true love, but now I've got never a one,
But I'll watch all over his son, whilst he's growing."