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.