Iona & Peter Opie have 4 1/2 pages of information about this song in their book The Singing Game {Oxford University Press, 1985, pp.116-120.]

The song is given as #17 under the title "Green Grass". Among the information provided is that "Green Grass was in vogue from the 1820s to the 1920s, during which time it seems to have been known in three or four forms according to where it was played."

-snip-

Here is one version of this song that the Opies provide:

"A dis, a dis, a green grass,
A dis, a dis, a dis;
Come all ye pretty fair maids,
And dance along with us.

For we are going a-roving.
A-roving in this land;
We'll take this pretty fair maid,
We'll take her by the hand.

Ye shall get a duke, my dear.
And ye shall get a drake;
And ye shall get a young prince,
A young prince for your sake.

And if this young prince change to die,
Ye shall get another;
The bells will ring, and the birds will sing,
And we'll all clap hands together.

-snip-

The Opies credit that version to Scotland in 1842, and write that these lyrics "were general in the northern part of Britain from,it is believed, about 1825 to the end or the century, the game being a simple one with a number of girls standing in a row 'from which two retire,and approach hand in hand' singing the first couple of verses, then selecting a girl from the group, taking her by the hand, and singing the next two verse."

-snip-

A number of other versions of this song are given including this one from Philadelphia, aboout 1860

"Tred, tred the green grass,
Dust, dust, dust;
Come all ye pretty fair maids
And walk along with us.

If you be a fair maid,
As I suppose you be,
I'll take you by the lily-white hand
And lead you across the sea."

-snip-

Also see this excerpt {p. 119 The Singing Game}:

"Newell thought 'a dis, a dis' might come from the Scots word adist meaning 'on this side' as opposed to ayont, 'on the far side'... Again "a dis, a dis' maybe thought to invoke the name of Dis, from whom, according to the Gauls, the Druids were descended; and to the non-sequitarians the fact that his name should be remembered in the Scottish lowlands where the people have been declared to be of Gallic exraction is considered significant. Again, it cannot be certain that green here is a colour, and not the old Scottish verb grene or green 'to long for' {cf. gren, 'to yearn'}, and that grass or griss does not come from greis or gries, meaning 'gravel' which is not so out-of-the way as might appear when the widespread funeral witch-dance is remembered "Green gravel, green gravel, the grass is so green".