The Prince and the Mermaid

Once upon a time, on a foggy isle,

A wealthy kingdom did dwell

whose fears ran livid, cruel, and vile,

Prayed to Heaven and served Hell.

They blamed witchcraft for the weather

and demons for the famine

Listen here, children, and let me tell you

the truth about what happened.

A young Prince lived in this land,

where fear and hatred blurred,

but he never did quite understand,

the condemning of mythical majesty.

One day he met a Mermaid,

a feared thing of legend.

Yet when dusk kissed the sea,

there with her he laid

and begged the moon to wait.

The salt on her lips, the taste of their kiss

hands tangled in her fiery hair

not another breath but theirs-

Her enchanting voice in the midnight air

Theirs’ was a manic love

whispered in the still of night

The weeks passed in dreamy wonder,

a haze of sweet starlit laughter.

Two feet on a gilded castle floor,

but the Prince’s heart belonged to her

and it thumped longingly 

against the lovely ocean shore

Finishing his shift on a little docked skiff,

a ruddy Sailor was to make his leave, 

when two beady eyes found a surprise-

two lovers embraced on a lonely beach.

Hidden for a better look,

The Sailor hunkered on the port,

A glimpse of mermaid tail and a royal face.

He rose with the dawn to report

A Bishop aching for a prince’s power

and a Sailor consumed with his greed-

conspired by candlelit fire, hatched a plan in hours,

fueled by a royal jealousy.

That night the Prince donned his cloak,

a figure framed by the dying sun,

took a ferry ‘cross the castle moat.

He’d walked this road a thousand times-

And maybe just once more.

Two miles away, at the dying day,

the little Mermaid lay on the sand.

Up and down her tail did sway,

in wait for the footsteps of man.

Meanwhile, a Bishop and a Sailor,

after a stretch of devilish thought,

sent for the King’s men,

and left the house of God.

There were redcoats in waiting,

Fifty redcoats in waiting,

on the seaside road

the Prince came whistling a jolly tune,

under a cold and callous moon.

A bend in the road, and in a flash,

Fifty rifles with one aim.

The Prince was forced to kneel at once,

his face a mask of pain.

The Sailor stood, watchful, smug, 

Flanked the Bishop as he grinned

and grabbed a fist of the prince’s hair,

and began to list his sins.

“Conspiring with demons?” he said,

“A sorceress of the deep?”

And the Bishop raised his sword,

to give the Prince eternal sleep.

A flash of steel in the moonlight,

A cry of agony in the moonlight,

and a Prince left to bleed,

and to die in sight of the sea.

A thirst for blood unquenched.

The Bishop summoned the rest.

To continue their march to the shore-

There was one little Mermaid left.

She had laid in wait all the while,

yet feared something went amiss,

for there were fifty footsteps coming near,

far too many to be his.

She did not swim, could not swim,

not until it was too late,

for fifty rifles found her there,

pierced the night and sealed her fate.

Some say when dusk kisses the sea

and you beg the moon to wait,

a Prince still whistles a merry tune 

leaves a bitter chill in his wake.

Even now, by that forsaken shore

a voice carries across the water

Singing of love, singing of pain

and a Prince that never came.