Ever After
Keep your kiss, sweet prince, you’ve come,
Now leave me to my slumber,
In dreams where harrowing dungeons crumble,
Gone their gates of lumber.
How is it that you could hope
To match the lure of dreams?
Sleep I take before your hand,
So awful waking seems.
Leave! No fairytale can match
Unfeeling thought suspended.
Maybe life is joyless here,
But every bone is mended.
Even though the towers here
Rise not as tall or stately,
Knives and swords and pain are vanished,
Never seen here lately.
Ask me not of life again,
Vainly in your pleading,
Every vow of waking’s riches
Seem to anguish leading.
Who would think that I could swallow
All my heart forsaking,
Knowing with the prince I follow
Ever comes my waking?
Night is far too short for me
In such an anguish deep,
No time to heal, and so I freely
Greet enchanted sleep.