Author's note: Some of you might recognize this as one of the poems in my collection of fairy-tale inspired poetry, which I took down some time ago. I did save this, however, and I decided to post it up again. It's inspired by Sleeping Beauty, as the summary suggests, as well as John Keats' poem La Belle Dame Sans Merci. Despite the poem's depressing content, I wrote La Princesse Lointaine (The Faraway Princess)with my tongue in my cheek. Really, I did.
La Princesse Lointaine
A Song of Disillusionment
Briar-Rose, they named her,
a sleeping maiden with hair of golden sheen,
and lips as crimson as passionate blood,
and eyes bright and verdant green!
'Twas for her I had travelled far and wide,
o'er mountain frost and warm-grassed dale,
'neath waning moons and dying suns,
to seek that maiden, fair and pale!
'Twas for her I had forsaken home and family,
(now many leagues behind)
to seek beauty, fair and true;
beauty that I may yet succeed to find!
'Twas for her I had suffered ill company:
bandits wicked and ruffians day-to-day,
and thus I drew out my sword, for her,
and much of the ill company I did slay!
'Twas for her I would endure
the flash of swords cruel and mean,
and festering wounds upon my arms,
and all for a face I had never seen!
'Twas for her I dared climbed that tower high,
with black, ancient stone for its carapace,
and the top of which surpassed all mountain peaks,
yet, housed within was a most beautiful face...
Alas! But when I beheld her it seemed
she was pale and cold 'yond rescue or belief:
'Twas a face that belonged to a sleeping corpse —
I fell upon my bloodied knees in grief.
She is beyond my embraces, my sweet kisses,
she cannot feel the sun-warmth upon her head —
I cannot weep, nor dare to speak,
for she sleeps there as one dead.
O what curse would befall her? I cried,
that would eternally rob her of wakefulness!
The green of her eyes now hidden 'neath shut lids,
for wicked repose hath granted her lifelessness.
Was it for this I had journeyed for a thousand leagues —
a distance akin to the width of the ageless sea,
and suffered pain akin to skin against briar-thorns,
All for a death-wreathed skeleton, She!
