The red clover’s coming early this year

it runs through the fields like a vein in your temple

covers the meadow like black on a kettle

the red clover’s coming early I hear

we laughed and we ran like we’d never known hunger

we watched the moon rise, my true love and I

I kissed his fingers and he kissed my eyes

sweet as the honey and golden as summer

the red clover’s coming early this year

it covers the fields like chains on a chattel

red as the morning after a battle

the clover is coming in early I hear

I searched for my true love down in the meadow

where the clover is red as the rose in my cheeks

there was my true love, down in the meadow

in the moonlight he kissed her beside a green creek

the red clover’s coming early I hear

runs like the blood through a vein your temple

dark as his eyes made big by the water

the red clover comes like a girl to her father;

the red clover’s coming early this year.