Come all ye fair and tender ladies
Be careful how you court young men
They're like a star on a summer's morning
They'll first appear and then they're gone
They'll tell you some loving story
They'll declare to you their love is true
Then they will go and court some other
And that's the love they have for you

Do you remember our days of courting
When your head lay upon my breast
You could make me believe with falling of your arm
That the sun rose in the west
I wish I was a little sparrow,
And I had wings with which to fly
Right over to see my false true-lover,
And when he's talking I'd be nigh.

But I'm not a little sparrow,
I have no wings with which to fly
So I sit here in grief and sorrow,
To weep and pass my troubles by
If I had known before I courted
That love was such a killing thing
I'd a-locked my heart in a box of golden
And fastened it up with a silver pin.