Princess Eloise #2 - Orphans

A clearing in the Forest Grim
Where stands an ancient stone-built forge
Ev'ning has silenced the anvil's ring
And the Smithy has paused
To feed the boy, the hungry one
His only precious foundling son
'Smithy tell me once again
The tale of the heartless King'
Smithy knew he'd not restrain
The boy's incessant questioning

'The Queen that bore poor Eloise
Was Queen no more that day
The new Queen ruled in her stead
With scarce a month's delay
In scarce a year a Prince was born
Upon the date of his sister's birth
Eloise to supplant
Much to her father's mirth

Yet the Royal Advocate
Refused to be complicit
'Eloise must take the throne
The law is quite explicit''
How she lived these ten long years
Eloise without her mother
How many are the silent tears ...'
He tailed off to a mutter

He paused and listened - and without
A strange uncommon din
A muttering a whiffling
The crying of a little thing
A snuffling a sniffling
A silence fell o'er everything
The Smith strode out into the night
The boy sat still, eyes wide with fright

Waiting in the firelight
Without the window darkest night
Then suddenly the Smith returned
Anger in his dark eyes burned
'Take care of this I must away
Look not for me until the day'
Though in haste he paused a beat
And placed a bag at his feet

Within the Smithy's bag a pair
Of chestnut eyes that constant stare
Needle claws on each black paw
A bundle of bear rolls on the floor
Thus came Bruin to the pair
Thus started the kinship of boy and his bear
The Smithy smiled and understood
For he was kind and he was good

He returned at break of day
What he had done he would not say
He wearily smiled at the sleepy head
And to the boy he gravely said
'Boy you take good care of him
An orphan child of the Forest Grim
For what we give we shall receive
When the pain of others we relieve'

Westering Lights

Dusky evening shadow falls
Bleaching the sky - blue aqua - blue powder - blue black
Westering gulls intent on the sea - them as went out turning back
Lit bronze by the high setting light
And the white moon rides forth on a smudge of grey mist
Soon to be joined by the stars of the night

Princess Eloise #1 - Bitter Kingdom

Nobility and chivalry
A dim and distant memory
A hollow King and his barren Queen
Frustrated posterity
Nine months of hope had come to this
Princess Eloise
Then the Queen had breathed her last
Her husband to displease
He raged against his blighted life
He raged and cursed his absent wife
He raged against the little one
'But that she had been a son'
He raged against poor Eloise
Doomed nevermore her King to please

Without the wall another cry
A mother worthy of the name
New-bereaved and mourning
Sobbing cries her grief proclaim
Her husband murdered in the gutter
Naught but anguish will she utter
And her baby stole away
A mean and petty debt to pay
Forsaking town and house and home
And all that once she called her own
Empty handed to the Forest Grim
She flees reciting the names of him
Him that's dead and him that's stole
And none will dare to her console

The King looked down upon her plight
From a window atop a flight
Of stairs within the castle dark
He blindly stared and did not mark
How she stumbles, weeps and grieves
How she passes out of sight
Enfolded by the forest leaves
Swallowed by the bitter night
Self-pity leaves no room for grace
Upon the monarch's stony face
Eloise must keep her peace
And always keep an eye that's dry
In a castle such as this
The hated child may not cry