The Mushroom Princess

I sing of Toadstool, loveliest of maids, and Mario, bravest plumber e'er known.

Canto I

A fair princess in far off kingdom lives
Beauty exceeded only by her pow'r;
Her magic hand her nation safety gives
Her wise, clear voice doth rule from iv'ry tow'r.

Now trag'dy strikes, the maid is stol'n away
By turtles fierce, who lust for power cruel.
They charge the land, like dark eclipse of day
And snatch the princess for their evil rule.

Their leader, Bowser, laughs and long and hard.
His reptile grips descends upon the land.
All creatures wilt, as though from poison shard.
The ground itself doth shake beneath his hand.

Now far away in a long distant world
Beyond the pipes that pierce th'ethereal veil
In a city called Brooklyn there lay curled
Upon two beds, a pair of brothers well

Exhausted from their daily labors great.
Luigi young and Mario elder.
They'd served the city for twelve hours late
Patching up leaks and clearing clogs of fur.

The eldest now has a familiar dream
Of a lady in pink like tender rose.
Her eyes outshine the sunlight with their gleam
She reaches out her hand, and Mario knows

Tis peril that she fears and only he
May mend what's broken and restore therein
The treasures shattered by malicious glee
So mushrooms and flowers may thrive again.

"Luigi," he says, upon wakening,
"This thing that I've seen is a work of magic.
The pipe she led me to inside my dream
Will take us to her fallen realm tragic."

And so they set out to the place foretold
A secret path hidden beneath the ground.
The eerie green of the pipe them enfold
The magic transports them without a sound.