Come all you fair and tender ladies,
Be careful how you court young men;
They’re like a star of a summer’s morning,
They’ll first appear, and then they’re gone. 

They’ll tell to you some loving story,
They’ll declare to you their love is true;
Straight-way they’ll go and court some other,
And that’s the love they’ll have for you.

I wish I was some little sparrow,
That I had wings, could fly so high;
I’d fly away to my false true lover,
And when he’s talkin’, I’d be by.

But I am not some little sparrow,
And neither have I wings to fly;
I’ll set down here in grief and sorrow
To weep and pass my troubles by.

If I’d a-known before I courted,
I never would have courted none;
I’d a-lock’d my heart in a box of golden,
And pinn’d it up with a silver pin.