It is often lonely here
In the palace of Iron Walls.
The cold and dark thrive here
Filling these empty halls.
I have a beautiful library here
With books of every kind and field.
But even with all the knowledge they hold
There is a power they do not wield.
Once a window came open here
And out through it I gazed.
I saw the humble village below
And by it, I was amazed.
The children there laugh and play
Though simple lives they may lead.
While I sit with sorrows and heaps of gold
They rejoice o'er a single glass bead.
But then the window is shut in my face
By the high ones, they have now returned.
"Go back to your books," they repeatedly say.
"And read them until you've learned."
The sorrows well up inside here
In the palace of Iron Walls.
They wish and they wash and they spread all about
Filling the once-empty halls.
The children's laughs echo in my head
As I sit with my books and cry.
For long I have wondered and pondered my plight
But now suddenly I think I know why.
I run about, through the corridors
Of the palace of Iron Walls
And finally and suddenly find I can see
That there's no one, nothing at all.
The high ones sit up in their chamber
The servants sit all in their own
And down in the valley the villagers sing
Of their wonderful home-sweet-home.
It is often lonely here
In the prison of Iron Walls.
The cold and dark thrive here
Filling these empty halls.
