Goodby, children: the bad Good Knight
is through. The rescued girl is asleep,
dreaming of ransom and astrologers
in the highest room of the family Keep.

On the second floor the Him Himself
is sound asleep among his pudding wife
and in the great Ground Hall below
retainers denounce the family wine

and pick at the bones of a cold dwarf.
Down in the cellars you shivered about,
continuous shrieks applaud the rack: he is,
from top to bottom, a good to bad scout,

domestic in the middle. You are fortunate
to have escaped from this on muffled oats.