The trees, they grow high and the leaves, they do grow green

Many is the time my true love I've seen

Many an hour I watched him all alone

He's young but he's daily growing

Father, dear father, you've done me great wrong

You have married me to a boy who is too young

I am twice twelve and he is about fourteen

He's young but he's daily growing

Daughter, dear daughter, I've done you no wrong

I have married you to a great Lord's son

And he will be a man for you when I am dead and gone

He's young but he's daily growing

Father, dear father, if you see fit

We'll send him to college for another year yet

I'll tie a blue ribbon all around his head

To let the maidens know that he is married

One day I was looking over my father's castle wall

I spied all the boys playing with a ball

And my own true love, he was the flower of them all

He's young but he's daily growing

And so early in the morning at the dawning of the day

They went into a hayfield for to have some sport and play

And what they did there she never would declare

But she never more complained of his growing

At the age of fourteen he was a married man

At the age of fifteen, the father of my son

At the age of sixteen, his grave, it was green

And death had put an end to his growing

I'll buy my love some flannel, I'll make my love a shroud

And every stitch I put in it, the tears, they'll pour down

And every stitch I put in it, how the tears, they will flow

Cruel fate has put an end to his growing