Bonny Boy

The trees are growing high my love, and the grass is growing green;
And many a cold and winter night that I alone have been.
It is a cruel and bitter night that I must lie alone,
Oh! the Bonny Boy is young, but he is growing.

Oh! father, dear father I think you did me wrong
For to go and get me married to one that is so young.
He is but sixteen years and I am twenty-one.
Oh! the bonny boy is young and he's growing.

Oh! daughter, dear daughter, I did not do you wrong
For to go and get you married to one that is so young,
He will be a match for you when I am dead and gone.
Oh! the bonny boy is young, but he is growing.

Oh! father, dear father, I'll tell you what I'll do;
I'll send my love to college for another year or two;
And all around his college cap, I'll bind a ribbon blue,
For to let the ladies know that he's married.

A year it went by and I passed the college wall
And saw the young collegians a-playing at the ball;
I spied him in among them, the fairest of them all,
Oh! my bonny boy was young and still growing.

At the age of sixteen years he was a married man,
And at the age of seventeen the father of a son,
But at the age of eighteen, o'er his grave the grass grew green;
Cruel death put an end to his growing.

I'll buy my love a shroud of the Holland linen brown;
And whilst they are making it, the tears they will run down;
It's once I had a true love, but now he's lying low,
And I'll nurse his bonny boy while he's growing.

DT #307
Laws O35
AX
oct99