As Malcolm says above, "Later 19th century would seem a reasonable guess". The song as it it today was probably first printed by Sharp, but seems to be older. The second version (text only) in Beldon, Ballads and Songs Collected by the Misssouri Folk-Lore Society (1940) is titled "Warning", which is from "C.H. Williams, Bollinger County, 1906, who says: 'I was very young when I learned this and don't remember who I heard sing it first.'" (p. 478):

WARNING

Come all ye fair and tender ladies,
Take warning how you love young men;
They are like the star of a summer's morning,
First appear and then they are gone again.

Once I thought I had a lover,
Indeed I thought he was my own;
Straightway he went and courted another
And left me here to grieve and moan.

I wish I were some little sparrow,
One of those would fly so high;
I'd fly away to my false lover
And when he talked I'd be close by;

All in his breast I would flutter
With my little tender wings
Ask him whom he meant to flatter,
Whom he intended to deceive.

But as it it, I'm no sparrow,
Neither wings to fly so high.
I'll sit me down in grief and sorrow,
Sing, and pass my trouble by.

There're two versions in Alton C. Morris, Folksongs of Florida (1950, 1978, pp. 366-368). One is "Fair and Tender Ladies" (with music): "Recorded from the singing of Mrs. C.S. McClellan, High Springs, who learned the song from her mother [age or birth not given], a native Floridian who spent most of her life in the vicinity of Lawtey." The other is "Come All You Fair and Pretty Ladies": "Recorded from the singing of Mrs. G.A. Griffin, Newberry, who learned the song from her father, Mr. John R. Hart [age or birth not given], Dooly County, Georgia, when she was a young girl living near Adel, Georgia."

On the origin, The Traditional Ballad Index: Fair and Tender Ladies isn't of much help.

~Masato