(air: The Trees They Do Grow High)

As the trees lose all their leaves
evenings close round me
and I think on all the dreams that’s passed
since my young man I seen;
now I must make my bed
in the crook of this blind lane
with a bonny boy who’s young, but who’s growing.

When we were both fifteen
with him I fell in love;
the morning of his sixteenth year
I delivered him a son;
before my man was seventeen
on his grave the grass grew green:
pure heroin buried him, now he’s growing.

They sold my love a shroud
of the oriental brown:
for each needle’s stitch I found in it
O a tear it did run down;
who once I kissed so hungrily
kissed the night below,
not his own flesh and blood, nor sees him growing.

They came to take my baby
in the middle of the night;
It’s for the best, one bastard said
and I’m sure that she was right;
O I’d never walk these streets alone
and now they are my home –
I've forgotten all your names
come the morning.