The Ballad of Anne Boleyn and the Burglar

               

Hear it sung at Cecil Sharp House in a musical collaboration with Anto Morra  here

And at my house in a musical collaboration with King Henry VIII here

I stole to the door of Blickling Hall

On the nineteenth night of May

And met the ghost of Anne Boleyn

Shining bright as day.

 

Six headless horses drew her coach,

A headless coachman drove,

‘Give them their head!’ she laughed, then turned

On me her look of love.

 

‘I stalked you once, who later flew,

And kissed you wild and free

With lips of sweet and dangerous rose

Before the King took me.

 

‘I lost my head for the rose of the world

And the rose withered on the thorn.

I gave my heart for a hunted hour

And my soul to the Harrying horn.’

 

Her raven-headed throat was graved

With a bloody royal band

 ‘I’m Caesar’s’ cut in diamonds red

And King’s gold on her hand.

 

‘I am wild to hold, though I seem so tame

And smile like the blossom of May

‘And my poor heart died for a worldly crown

And I’ll take your breath away.’

 

‘I am not your True Thomas!’ I cried in dread.

Her face clouded like the moon,

‘Ah! You’ve named the angel who guards my grave,

To hell I must return.

 

‘I lost my head for the rose of the world

And the rose withered on the thorn.

I gave my heart for a hunted hour

And my soul to the Harrying horn.’



Moral- follow your head and lose it, choose love!

Read the full story here