BONNIE LADDIE (THE TREES ARE GROWIN' HIGH)
(5 different versions learned in the 1960s from Ewan MacColl, Joan Baez, and three others )
The trees are growin' high and the grass is growin' green,
Now, father, dear father, ye've done me muckle wrong,
Now daughter, dear daughter, I've done to you no wrong,
Now, father, dearest father, I'll tell you what we'll do,
A year went by, and I strolled out down by the college wall,
Now at the age of sixteen years he was a married man,
I'll buy my love a shroud of the ornamental brown,
(extra verse)
And many a day and night have passed that I alone have been,
The winter's nights are comin', and I must lie alone,
For my bonnie laddie's young, but he's growin'.
You've married me to a bonnie lad, but I fear he is too young,
For he is only sixteen years, and I am twenty-one,
He's a bonnie lad, but lang, lang a-growin'.
I've married you to a bonny lad, and he is a lord's son,
And he will be a man to you when I am dead and gone,
He's your bonnie lad, and young, but he's growin'.
We'll send him off to college for another year or two,
And all around his college cap we'll tie a ribbon blue,
To let the ladies know that he's married.
'Twas there I saw the college boys, and they were playing ball,
'Twas there I spied my bonny lad, the fairest of them all,
He's a bonny lad, but lang, lang a-growin'.
And at the age of seventeen, the father of a son,
And at the age of eighteen years, o'er his grave the grass grows green,
Cruel death had put an end tae his growin'.
And while they are a-makin' it, the tears they will run down,
'Twas once I had a bonny lad, but now he's lyin' low,
But I'll watch his bonny son while he's agrowin'.
Now come, all you maidens, a warning take from me,
And never build your nest in the top of any tree,
For the green leaves they will wither and the roots will all decay,
And the blushes of you bonnie lad will fade away.
