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.

buckets8buckets7buckets3cbuckets6
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