Agony

High in a tower-

Like yours was, but higher-

A beauty asleep.

All round the tower

A thicket of briar

A hundred feet deep.

Agony!

No frustration mor keen,

When the one thing you want

Is a thing that you've not even seen.

I found a casket

Entirely of glass-

No, it's unbreakable.

Inside- don't ask it-

A maiden, alas,

Just as unwakable-

What unmistakable agony!

Is the way always barred?

She has skin white as snow-

Did you learn her name?

No,

There's a dwarf standing guard.

Agony!

Such that Princes must weep!

Always in thrall most

To anything almost,

Or something asleep.

If it were not for the thicket-

A thicket's no trick.

Is it thick?

It's the thickest.

The quickest

Is pick it

Apart with a stick-

yes, but even one prick-

It's my thing about blood.

Well, it's sick!

It's no sicker

Than you thing with dwarves.

Dwarfs.

Dwarfs...

Dwarfs are every upsetting.

Not forgetting

The tasks unacheivable,

Mountains unscalable-

If it's conceivable

But unavailable,

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-

Agony!

Misery!

Not to know what you miss.

While they lie there for years-

And you cry on their biers-

What unbearable bliss!

Agony

That can cut like a knife!

Ah, well, back to my wife...