Young but daily Growing
The trees they grow tall, the leaves they grow green The time has come and passed my love, since you and I have been It’s a cold and bitter night my love, that I lie here alone My bonnie boy was young, but he’s gone.
Oh father dearest father, you did to me what’s wrong When you married me to my bonnie boy, whose age it was so young For he was scarce sixteen years, and I was twenty one My bonnie boy was young and growing.
Oh daughter dearest daughter, I did to you no wrong When I married you to your bonnie boy, I knew he was too young For he would prove to be a man to you when I was dead and gone Your bonnie boy was young and growing.
But daughter dearest daughter, I’ll tell you what I’ll do I’ll send your love to college for another year or two And whilst he is in college, he’ll wear a ribbon blue So the girls will all know that he’s married.
As I was walking down by the college wall I spied four-and-twenty college boys all playing with their ball It’s there I spied my own true love, the fairest if them all My bonnie boy was young and growing.
And at the age of sixteen he was a married man And at the age of seventeen the father of a son At the age of eighteen years, o’er his grave the grass grew green Cruel death had put an end to his growing.
I’ll buy my love a shroud of the oriental brown And whilst I sit and sew it, so my tears they will roll down I will weep and I will mourn him until the day I die But I’ll rear his bonnie son, while he’s growing.