[Verse 1] (Female) Fields below Dunsinane, dawn still damp and grey, Malcolm leads the column down the Birnam way. Old Siward and his son march steady by his side, Macduff beside the banners, Scottish lords in stride. (Male – Siward) "What wood is this before us?" He squints across the land. A green wall stretching sideways, too wide to understand. [Chorus] (Both) Cut a bough, carry it high, hide the count from a watching eye. Hew means chop, bough's a branch torn free, marching forest, a moving tree — that's discovery blinded, the scouting gone blind, numbers hidden in leaves left behind. [Verse 2] (Male – Malcolm) "Let every soldier hew him down a bough, And bear't before him" — that's the order now. Each man a thicket, each soldier a screen, Macbeth's spies counting shadows they've never seen. (Female) So thousands look like thousands of trees instead, a camouflage of kindling marching toward his dread. The wood itself will walk there, just as the witches said. [Chorus] (Both) Cut a bough, carry it high, hide the count from a watching eye. Hew means chop, bough's a branch torn free, marching forest, a moving tree — that's discovery blinded, the scouting gone blind, numbers hidden in leaves left behind. [Verse 3] (Female) Word comes back from scouts along the ridge: Macbeth sits walled in, won't cross the bridge. (Male – Malcolm) "And none serve with him but constrained things, Whose hearts are absent too" — no loyalty it brings. Forced men holding swords they'd rather drop, a castle full of soldiers who are praying it will stop. [Bridge] (Both, softer) No vote, no voice, just dragged into the fight, hollow men guarding a hollow kind of right. Arbitrate — to settle, to decide, to choose — the battlefield will judge who wins and who shall lose. [Verse 4] (Male) So onward through the greenery the armies softly tread, a forest built from branches where an army marched instead. (Female) The prophecy's half-answered, though none of them yet know, Birnam Wood is walking, slow and steady, row by row. [Chorus] (Both) Cut a bough, carry it high, hide the count from a watching eye. Hew means chop, bough's a branch torn free, marching forest, a moving tree — that's discovery blinded, the scouting gone blind, numbers hidden in leaves left behind. [Outro] (Both, fading) Branch by branch, the trick takes hold, a castle waits, its fate foretold.
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