Just when you are lulled, engrossed,
Your guard is down
Toward opera’s predators and hosts,
The legend balks:
The hero and heroine drown;
A kobold leaping from the wings attacks
You, onlooker,
And Valkyries in a choir
Shriek an alien, other score that cracks
The groundlings’ subterranean desire.
Brunhilda has sung; Siegfried has ridden his horse;
The lights come up; the listeners clamor and fawn;
But what of Alberich, the evil dwarf?
A gold dwarf conifer shimmers on the lawn
And steals your sense with never a glint of remorse.