The images below are of paint-buckets hanging from the Japanese Lilac in the back-yard. And the lyrics are from Sondheim’s Into the Woods.

high in a tower, like yours but higher   a beauty asleep   all ’round the tower, a thicket of briar   a hundred feet deep   agony, no frustration more 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 unawakable 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 your thing with dwarfs     dwarfs dwarfs     dwarfs are very upsetting not forgetting the tasks unachievable, mountains unscalable if it’s conceivable but unavailable ah     ah     ah     ah     ah     ah agony, misery, woe, not to know what you miss while they lie there for years     and you cry on their biers what unbearable bliss

Sondheim’s Into the Woods   Agony – Part 1

Sondheim’s Into the Woods   Agony – Reprise