The Ballad of Baby Doe lives of actual historical figures Horace Tabor, Elizabeth "Baby" Doe Tabor, and Augusta Tabor, the opera tracks their lives from Horace and Baby Doe's meeting to the death of Horace. "Always Through the Changing" is a postscript ending foretelling Baby's death. Scene 1 The story begins by commenting on the riches of the Matchless Mine and on how Horace Tabor owns the whole town of Leadville, Colorado. Horace sings "It's a Bang Up Job" to the townspeople, praising his new opera house and sharing his disenchantment with his wife Augusta. During intermission at a performance at the opera house, Augusta
The White Doe of Rylstone to make a weekly pilgrimage from Rylstone to Bolton Abbey. The historical parts of the story of "The White Doe" are taken from a ballad called "The Rising in the North", which Wordsworth had read in Percy's "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry", and also from Nicolson and Burn's "The History and Antiquities of the Counties of Westmorland and Cumberland". The influence of other ballads from Percy's "Reliques" has also been traced in the poem, and the dedicatory poem to "The White Doe" is filled with references to Spenser's "The Faerie Queene". The metre of the poem is similar to that