Prelude

The Hazards Of Love 1 (The Prettiest Whistles Won't Wrestle The Thistles Undone)

First voice:

My true love went riding out

In white and green and gray

Past the pale of Offa’s Wall

Where she was wont to stray

And there she came upon

A white and wounded fawn

Singing: oh, the hazards of love

She being full of charity

A credit to her sex

Sought to right the fawn’s hind legs

When here her plans were vexed

The taiga shifted strange

The beast began to change

Singing: oh, the hazards of love

Oh, the hazards of love

You’ll learn soon enough

The prettiest whistles won’t wrestle the thistles undone

Undone

Fifteen lithesome maidens lay

Along in their bower

Fourteen occupations paid

To pass the idle hour

But Margaret heaves a sigh

Her hands clasped to her thigh

Singing: oh, the hazards of love

Oh the hazards of love

You’ll learn soon enough

The prettiest whistles won’t wrestle the thistles undone

Undone

A Bower Scene

Second voice:

“Thou unconsolable daughter,” said the sister
“When wilt thou trouble the water in the cistern?
And what irascible blackguard is the father?”

And when young Margaret’s waistline grew wider
The fruit of her amorous entwine inside her
And so our heroine withdraws to the taiga

Won't Want For Love (Margaret In The Taiga)

Margaret: Gentle leaves, gentle leaves
Please array a path for me
The woods all growing thick and fast around

Columbine, columbine
Please alert this love of mine
Let him know his Margaret comes along

And all this stirring inside my belly
Won’t quell my want for love
And I may swoon from all this swelling
But I won’t want for love

Mistle thrush, mistle thrush
Lay me down in the underbrush
My naked feet grow weary with the dusk

Willow boughs, willow boughs
Make a bed to lay me down
Let your branches bow to cradle us

chorus
William: O my own true love!
O my own true love!

Can you hear me love?
Can you hear me love?

chorus

The Hazards Of Love 2 (Wager All)

William: And here I am softer than a shower
And here I am to garland you with flowers
To lay you down in a clover bed
The stars a roof above our heads

And all my life I’ve never felt the tremor
All my life — that now disturbs my fingers
I’ll lay you down in a clover bed
The stars a roof above our heads

And we’ll lie ’til the corncrake crows
Bereft the weight of our summer clothes
And I’d wager all
The hazards of love
The hazards of love

Take my hand, cradle it in your hand
Take my hand. Feel the pull. The quicksand.
I’ll lay you down in a clover bed
The stars a roof above our heads

And we’ll lie ’til the corncrake crows
Bereft the weight of our summer clothes
And I’d wager all
The hazards of love
The hazards of love

The Queen's Approach

I'm
Made of bones of the branches
The boughs and the brow-beating light

While my feet are the trunks
And my head is the canopy high

And my fingers extend
To the leaves
And the eaves
And the (bright?)

Might I shine?
It's my shine (child?)

He
Was a baby abandoned
Entombed in a cradle of claim (clay?)

And I was a soul
Who took pity
And stole him away

And gave him the form of
A fawn to inhabit
By day

Bright Eyes, stay
It's my day

And you
Have removed this temptation
That's troubled my innocent child

To abduct and abuse and to render, (bereft?) and defiled

But the river is deep
To the banks and the water is wild,
I will fly you
To the far side

Isn't It A Lovely Night?

Margaret: Isn’t it a lovely night?
And so alive with fireflies providing us their holy light
And here we made a bed of boughs
And thistledown to lay us down up the dewy ground

And isn’t it a lovely way
We got in from our play
Isn’t it babe? A sweet little baby
 
William: Wasn’t it a lovely breeze
That swept the leaves of arbor eaves
And bent to brush our blushing knees?
 
M & W: And here we died our little deaths
And we were left to catch our breaths
So swiftly lifting from our chests

The Wanting Comes In Waves / Repaid

Colin: Mother I can hear your foot-fall now
Soft disturbance in the dead-fall how
It proceeds you like a black smoke pall
Still the wanting comes in waves

And you delivered me from danger, then
Pulled my cradle from the reedy glen
Swore to save me from the world of men
Still the wanting comes in waves

In waves, and waves
And the wanting comes in waves
And the wanting comes in waves
And I want this night
And I want this night

Queen:  How I made you
I wrought you 
I pulled you
From ore I labored you
From cancer I cradled you

And now: this is how I am repaid?
This is how I am repaid?

Remember when I found you
The miseries that hounded you

And I gave you motion
Anointed with lotions

And now:This is how I am repaid?
This is how I am repaid?

William: Mother hear this proposition right
Grant me freedom to enjoy this night
And I'll return to you at break of light
For the wanting comes in waves

And waves, and waves
Still the wanting comes in waves
Still the wanting comes in waves
Still the wanting comes in waves
And you owe me life
And you owe me life

Queen: And if I grant you
This favor to hand you
Your life for the evening
I will re-take by morning

And so: Consider it your debt repaid
Consider it your debt repaid

An Interlude

The Rake's Song

Rake: I had entered into a marriage
In the summer of my twenty-first year
And the bells rang for our wedding
Only now do I remember it clear

All right, all right, all right!

No more a rake and no more a bachelor
I was wedded and it whetted my thirst
Until her womb started spilling out babies
Only then did I reckon my curse

All right, all right, all right!

First came Isaiah with his crinkled little fingers
Then came Charlotte and that wretched girl Dawn
Ugly Myfanwy died on delivery
Mercifully taking her mother along

All right, all right, all right!

What can one do when one is a widower
Shamefully saddled with three little pests
All that I wanted was the freedom of a new life
So my burden I began to divest

All right, all right, all right!

Charlotte I buried after feeding her foxglove
Dawn was easy: she was drowned in the bath
Isaiah fought but was easily bested
Burned his body for incurring my wrath

All right, all right, all right!

And that’s how I came your humble narrator
To be living so easy and free
I expect that you think that I should be haunted
But it never really bothers me

All right, all right, all right!

The Abduction Of Margaret

First voice: And all the while whispering arbors provide cover
What previous witnessed ardors of our lovers
Our heroine here falls prey to her abductor!

All a’gallop with Margaret slung rude ’cross withers
Having clamped her innocent fingers in fetters
This villain must calculate crossing the wild river!

The Queen's Rebuke / The Crossing

Queen: I’m made of bones of the branches, the boughs, and the brow-beating light
While my feet are the trunks and my head is the canopy high
And my fingers extend to the leaves and the eaves and the bright
Brightest shine, it’s my shine

And he was a baby abandoned, entombed in a cradle of clay
And I was the soul who took pity and stole him away
And gave him the form of a fawn to inhabit by day
Brightest day, it’s my day

And you have removed this temptation that’s troubled my innocent child
To abduct and abuse and to render her rift and defiled
But the river is deep to the banks and the water is wild
But I will fly you the far side 

Annan Water

William: Annan water, you loom so deep and wide
I would cross over if you would stem the tide
Or build a boat that I might ford the other side
To reach the farther shore where my true love lies in wait for me
In wait for me

O gray river, your waters ramble wild
The horses shiver and bite against the bridle
But I will cross if mine own horse is pulled from me
Though my mother cries that if I try I sure will drowned be
Drowned be

But if you calm and let me pass
You may render me a wreck when I come back

So calm your waves and slow the churn
And you may have my precious bones on my return

Annan water, oh hear my true love call
Hear her holler above your water’s pall
God that I could, that my two arms could give me wing
And I would cross your breadth and wrap my breast about her amber ring
Her amber ring

But if you calm and let me pass
You may render me a wreck when I come back

So calm your waves and slow the churn
And you may have my precious bones on my return
And you may have my precious bones
And I will call your depths my home
And you may have my precious bones on my return

Margaret In Captivity

Rake: I have snipped your wingspan
My precious captive swan
Here all clipped of kickstand
You spirit won’t last long

Don’t you lift a finger
Don’t you snap and jaw
Limber limbs akimbo
Rest ’til rubbing raw
 
Margaret: O my own true love
O my own true love

Can you hear me love
Can you hear me love?
 
Rake: Don’t hold out for rescue
None can hear your call
’Til I have wrest and wrecked you
Behind these fortress walls
 
Margaret: O my own true love
O my own true love

Can you hear me love?
Can you hear me love?

The Hazards Of Love 3 (Revenge!)

Charlotte: Father I’m not feeling well, the flowers me you fed
Tasted spoiled for suddenly I find that I am dead
But father don’t you fear
Your children all are here
Singing: O the hazards of love!
 
Dawn: Papa turn the water down, the basin’s overflown
The water covers everything and me left all alone
But Papa here in death
I have regained my breath
To sing: O the hazards of love!
 
Isaiah: Spare the rod, you’ll spoil the child but I’d prefer the lash
My sisters drowned and poisoned, all, and me reduced to ash
And buried in an urn
But father, I return
Singing: O the hazards of love

The Wanting Comes in Waves (Reprise)

The Hazards Of Love 4 (The Drowned)

William: Margaret, array the rocks around the hole before we’re sinking
A million stones, a million bones, a million holes within the chinking

And painting rings around your eyes, these peppered holes
So filled with crying
A whisper-weight upon the tattered down where you and I
Were lying.
 
So tell me now, O tell me this: a river’s son, a forest’s daughter
A willow wand, a will-o-wisp, our ghosts will wander all of the water
 
W & M: So let’s married here today, these rushing waves to bear our witness
And we will lie like river stones, rolling only where it takes us

But I pulled you and I called you here
(Didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I)
And I caught you and I brought you here
(Didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I)
But these hazards of love
Never more will trouble us

William: O Margaret the lapping waves are licking quietly at our ankles
Another bow, another breath; this brilliant chill has come for the shackle

W & M: But with this long, last rush of air let’s speak our vows in starry whisper
And when the waves came crashing down, he closed his eyes
And softly kissed her