Ada, my rarest bud from the desert valley
Your hair of fire and skin of snow
Have coursed me to the heights of the desert mountains
In search of the cure for a rampant fever
Your beauty's power, it plagues me now
I come and scour the land for the desert flower

For beauty and perfume I'd stake my house and my lands
The gold is sleeping in the river, but the flower's in my hand
With a paler leaf and a broken petal, I'll paint the king and queen
And to the goldsmith with my flower, I'll buy your wedding ring

Tulip, tulip with one word I'd a-buy
Oxen, sheep and wheat and rye and land on the north seaside
Tulip, tulip with one word I'd a-buy
The finest dresses man can buy and a pearl for to pay my bride

Then with my rarest bowl to her father's garden
Like gold for lamb or wool for clam
I gave that man a bowl for his daughter Ada
Your heart is mine, and it's mine forever
And she replied, 'My fate that lies on
'Yon horizon's tethered me to the sky'

The match arranged and vows exchanged and the dove flew away
The bells spilled out the hollow canyon on our wedding day
To me she gave her hand and to death do us part
But the bird will nest with one that she has promised her heart

Tulip, tulip with one word I'd a-buy
The bed from which our sons will rise and the window where she cries
Tulip, tulip with one word I'd a-buy
The next to catch the birds that fly from the window where she cries

He reaches out and I withdraw, spilling the flowering bribes from his paw
The broken petals climbing the walls, stealing my oxygen, no air at all
From the bed I hear him call, but I answer cooing when the night falls
The cotton sword is storming the hall, cutting my vision to no sight at all

I tied the tulip around her neck like a red lead sinker
And blindfold and spin around and 'round and 'round
To the banks of the river
And then walk my true love into the rushing water
And by her long hair, bleeding red
Hair-pulled my love there under until she drowned

For beauty and perfume, I'd stake my house and my lands
My love is sleeping in the river, but the flower's in my hand
With a paler leaf and a broken petal, I'll keep her all to me
And to the river with my flower, I'll hear my true love sing

Your water is still in my friend ready to drown
Water, water oh, water my kin, carry me out
This Eine River is mercy at last, die as she laughs
For he's waiting with a dove's nest, my true love

Tulip, tulip with one word I'd a-buy
A veil that parted o'er my bride and the breath as my true love died
Tulip, tulip with one word I'd a-buy
A veil that parted o'er my bride and the blue from the bluest eye

Tulip, tulip with one word I'd a-buy
A veil that parted o'er my bride and the breath as my true love died
Tulip, tulip with one word I'd a-buy
A veil that parted o'er my bride and the breath as my true love died