The Frog King

Lyrics

[Intro]
(plucked strings and a wet, low bassoon at the lip of a well)

[Verse 1]
My golden ball went down the well, past the reach of a spoiled princess,
and up crawled a cold and clammy thing to bargain for my distress:
"I'll fetch it back from the dark, little one, if you'll take me for a friend —
your plate, your cup, your pillow." I lied "yes," and I ran at the end.

[Chorus]
But a promise made is a promise owed, said the king at the supper board,
so the frog came knocking, cold and slow, to collect what I'd ignored.
Disgust is a wall the body builds to keep the strange outside —
but the thing on the far side of the flinch is sometimes the groom, and the guide.

[Verse 2]
He ate from my plate, he drank from my cup, and I bore it, sick with dread,
but I couldn't bear the last of it — the cold thing near my head.
So I seized him up in a temper and I flung him hard at the wall —
and the flinch broke open, and out he stepped, a prince, and not cold at all.

[Bridge]
(sly, then soft)
Loyal Heinrich had banded his heart with iron so it wouldn't split from grief —
and the bands sprang loose, one, two, three, at the sound of his lord's relief.

[Outro]
So mind the thing your gut can't stand, in the well or on the stair...
sometimes the flinch is the fairy tale, and the prince was always there.