Sondheim Stephen – Agony: Reprise lyrics

CP: 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 more keen,
When the one thing you want
Is a thing that you've not even seen.
RP: I've found a casket
Entirely of glass--
No, it's unbreakable.
Inside--don't ask it--
A maiden, alas,
Just as unwakeable--
Both: What unmistakable agony! Is the way always barred?
RP: She has skin white as snow--
CP: Did you learn her name?
RP: No, there's a dwarf standing guard.
Both: Agony! Such that princes must weep!
Always in thrall most
To anything almost,
Or something asleep.
CP: If it were not for the thicket--
RP: A thicket's no trick. Is it thick?
CP: It's the thickest.
RP: The quickest is pick it apart with a stick--
CP: Yes, but even one prick--
It's my thing about blood.
RP: Well, it's sick!
CP: It's no sicker than your thing with dwarves.
RP: Dwarves.
CP: Dwarves...
RP: Dwarves are very upsetting.
Both: Not forgetting the tasks unachievable,
Mountains unscalable--
If it's conceivable
But unavailable,
Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah--
Agony!
CP: Misery!
RP: Woe!
Both: Not to know what you miss.
CP: While they lie there for years--
RP: And you cry on their biers--
Both: What unbearable bliss!
Agony, that can cut like a knife!
Ah well, back to my wife...