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 but 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   Amd every stitch I put in it, how the tears, they will flow   Cruel fate has put an end to his growing