[Verse 1] In Chelsea garden, hedges trimmed and still, Lady More walks slow against her will, Her daughters flank her, Roper at her side, A susurrus — a whispering, hushed and sighed — Moves through the branches like a warning bell, Something underneath the quiet she can't tell. [Verse 2] "I dreamed," she says, "we rode the river bright, Golden barges carried us through candlelight, But our own small boat broke loose and veered, Swept beneath the Bridge where the current's feared, Down to a whirlpool churning by the Tower stone, We went under, husband, and we drowned alone." [Chorus] Dreams are presage, omens dressed as sleep, Warnings that the waking heart would keep, A boat capsized, a crucifix of dread — Listen to the pictures spinning in your head. [Verse 3] Margaret Roper trembles where she stands, "My father fell from the rood loft," she tells them, blood on his hands — That's the gallery holding Christ above the screen, He tumbled down it, broken, barely seen. Roper nods, his voice gone low and spare: "Our dreams all meet in one conclusion, Fatal, I fear." [Chorus] Dreams are presage, omens dressed as sleep, Warnings that the waking heart would keep, A boat capsized, a crucifix of dread — Listen to the pictures spinning in your head. [Verse 4] Then More comes strolling, merrier than before, Laughing that the court has shaved him raw and sore — Not with a razor, but with velvet knives, He's cut the ribbons tying up their lives. He's resigned the seal, no chancellor, no crown: "The fat is gone; my title's only More" — just a name, no gown. [Bridge] His wife breaks weeping at the garden wall, He catches her before the tears can fall: "You smiled at rising, weep not at my fall," Asking merriment to answer sorrow's call. [Verse 5] Far off in Whitehall, Henry paces slow, A king who wants his conscience to say so, An oath of succession, a signature of chains, A line drawn sharp through England's lanes. More will not sign what breaks the ancient creed, He knows refusal is a kind of seed That grows in silence into something grim, A tower waiting, cold and dark and dim. [Verse 6] The daughters whisper what they dare not say, That dreams are rivers rushing toward one day, That rood lofts fall and boats capsize the same, That every vision wears the Tower's name. Lady More looks skyward, pale and lost, Counting out the silence, counting out the cost, While Roper holds his wife's trembling hand And prays the dream won't come to pass as planned. [Outro] More himself looks back and wryly says, "The merriest counsellor of England's dead" — he weighs The joke and bows, still standing plain and tall, Just Thomas More, no title left at all. [Chorus] Dreams are presage, omens dressed as sleep, Warnings that the waking heart would keep, A boat capsized, a crucifix of dread — Listen to the pictures spinning in your head.
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