Of the Small Man

It started out the same

A foolish man, a greedy king,

The daughter caught in it all.

She was banished there,

A room of hay, and given one night,

To change all in sight, to glittering bright,

Precious gold, for the king in his keep.

She wept in there, for morning she’d die,

If all the hay stayed dull and the same,

and then came a man.

Half a man, small and with brown eyes,

He came and saw and offered to help,

But only for a price.

She wept again, and offered her jewel,

A gem of great worth, but only to her.

He took, snatched it, and straight away,

began spinning hay, to see it twinkle and lay

Overflowing with gold.

Morning came,

The greedy king rejoiced, she wept with relief,

Only to find, the next night, locked in a room twice the size as before,

Filled with piles of hay and straw galore,

Until the man came, and offered once more,

To help this sweet maid,

But she must give him more.

Again, she did give, the last of her jewels,

Again, he did spin, until morning was nigh,

The king came and rejoiced,

And yet once more,

Locked away in a chamber, over flowing with hay,

 And given the promise,

Of marriage or death.

Again, the man came,

But no more jewels did she have,

So instead he did offer,

For the price of her firstborn, a trade.

Eagerly, anxiously she accepted,

He took the bargain and began to spin.

The king did rejoice, the girl he did marry,

And yet a year later, not a child was had.

The small man visited, expecting it soon,

Yet nothing happened, moon after moon.

He visited the girl, and they talked and he found,

She was being abused, behind doors without sound.

She told him her grief, and more often he came,

To give her relief and simply a friend.

They grew closer as friends, nothing more,

Till one day, he came to visit and she was stricken,

Terrified out of her mind.

She was pregnant, from the king, and scared she was,

to either raise the child with a man she despised,

Or tell the same man, she’d lost it already, before it was born,

it belonged to the man, who’d helped her make gold.

And so the small man had an idea, they came to an agreement,

And hatched out a plan.

The child was his, as per agreement,

Of years past when he gave her relief.

And so, they decided they would leave together,

Her and the child, with the small man,

For refuge and safety, and hopefully relief.

And so, they did, leaving the greedy king,

Away in the land where the small man came,

Later to be married, but first, best friends,

Raising the child in his land,

In the land, of Rumpelstiltskin.