I was a daughter of the House of Wrens,
Where the wild roses climbed the wall,
I spoke the tongue of root and stone and stream,
The old grove taught me all.

I wore the green robe of the standing circle,
Walked the paths my teachers walked before,
The foxes came to eat out of my palm,
The ravens knew me at my door.

Sweet Corwen waited at the chapel door,
With a ring his grandmother wore,
He built me a trellis of white and red,
Said my roses were what he loved me for.

Oh, stone hands, don’t reach for me now,
Oh, cold eyes, I beg you, allow
One more bloom before the silence comes,
One more spring, before I’m lost to this…

A man in violet robes came calling,
Admired the garden that I’d grown,
He asked me for a cutting of my roses,
Smiled like he already knew my name.

He said the old grove’s magic ran too wild,
Said a gentler shape should hold my power,
I did not know his tongue was poison,
I did not know the binding in that hour.

He led me down to a garden of statues,
Where nothing living blooms with age,
He took the wildness that the grove had given
And twisted it into a cage.

Now Corwen searches every roadway,
My mother tends the beds we made,
They do not know what waits here for them
In this cold and thornbound glade.

I still know the name of every root and leaf,
But my cures cannot undo my own,
So I sing instead, in case he hears me,
In case he finds this garden, overgrown

Oh, don’t come closer, love, don’t you dare,
Oh, don’t look up, don’t meet my stare,
I am not what the wizard has made me seem,
I am still the girl who loved a rose, somewhere…