Classic Poem

His role is to invert the fairy tale;
To give the wakeful Beauty sleep,
Change back the charming Prince into a frog,
Or unmask him as the chimney sweep.
To him at last dear Cinderella,
And not Rapunzel, must let down her hair,
Yield up the hopeless fetish of the shoe
And much of what was dreamt below the stair.

Don't ask him tritely can he heal himself.
Hope rather that his private dream
For living happily forever after
Be not the fantasy that it may seem:
A village where the hunter's evening stride
Betrays no more of strutter than of hobbler;
And Cinderella sleeps content beside
The kind and well-adjusted cobbler.