Lyrics by Frank DiGiacomo and Julian R. Pace.

After Beauty’s Father returns home, he asks his daughters if one of them would be willing to return to the Beast’s realm in his place. Beauty, anxious for her Father’s life, readily accepts and goes to the Beast’s castle to meet her fate.

As she arrives she is weeping, holding the plucked Rose which the Beast gave her Father.

Photography by Sherry Eckstein.

LYRICS
Beauty:
        How hard it is, to part from all I know and love.
        When shall I see my dear Father again?
        How hard!
        When shall I see once more the quiet little house
        where we have been so happy, so happy?
        When I am lonely and afraid to whom shall I turn?
        No more for me  the comfort of my own bed at night,
        and sweetest labor by day for those who have known me
        all the days of my life.
        Ah! My life?
        Can this be the end?
        No! No!—I will not let it be.
        It will be a beginning.
        Whatever happens to me this is still my life.
        Just as this Rose, plucked from its stem, still seems fresh and lovely,
        I shall stay as I have been, and remain who I am,
        though taken away from my home.
        It seems so strange, though my heart aches with the pain of goodbye,
        as I look upon this Rose, token of my captivity, knell of my childhood dreams,
        I am filled with hope so uncalled for, so strange,
        so uncalled for, so strange.
        0 sweet flower, your perfume fills my heart and mind
        with the magic of this place and its enchantment.
        Though my Father and my Sisters, and even my own mind,
        have warned me with fearsome warnings,
        I have not been afraid. I am not afraid. I will not be afraid.    
        I am wed to my fate, and whatever it will be,
        it is mine to cherish!

Photography by John Dowling.