Hawthorn

I gave my love a fool’s ring of green gold
‘round a May morn and the haw
There in the wood where she cast her white charms
All her fine fruit to be borne
Bound by the rows there’s a tree grows and bears
The blood of the world in its name…
Hawthorn… that enfolds
All the world’s wounded souls in
Rings of green gold
The gifts of the hawthorn
Fell from the first sweetest kiss of the rain
The red bitter fruit of the haw
Bound by her spell into briar, branch and leaf
The finch, nesting, knows every thorn
All I can hear is the cry of my heart
Sacrificed on the cross of your name…
Hawthorn… that enfolds
All the world’s wounded souls in
Rings of green gold
The gifts of the hawthorn

While winter’s hands hold the stain of the seed
In the snow as it falls ‘neath the haw
I dark as night lie in her sleeping fire
Cold as the land’s broken word
She was my thorn, my mayflower, my wound
She was my need and my name…
Hawthorn… that enfolds
All the world’s wounded souls in
Rings of green gold
The gifts of the hawthorn

© Hawthorn music by Tom Fairnie & Bernard Brogue, words by Tom Fairnie, Bernard Brogue, Bob Shields & Jane Fairnie with an additional credit to Karen Dietz in recognition of her interpretation 30th December 2007

Based on an original melody created by TomFairnie, which became a song with words by Tom Fairnie and Bob Shields; this melody was then revised with the additional melody created by Bernard Brogue and Tom Fairnie. The final version of the lyrics was written by Bob Shields, Tom Fairnie and Jane Fairnie, with the final interpretation of the song being created by Karen Dietz.