random poem of fate

Once upon a time, there lived a king and queen,
Who ruled the British Isles over yonder hills of green.
One fateful day, the queen grew ill
While ruler, wife, and pregnant still.
The king was troubled, his hair turned grey.
He did not want his queen to die. He wanted her to stay!
Just then, when all hope seemed lost, a woman came to the throne,
An old wizard who, save 12 black cats and a chameleon, lived all alone.
The old hag said to the king
“I have, for the queen, a gift to bring.
‘Tis a magic golden flower, brought forth from the earth.
It will save your queen and bless your child’s birth.
However”, the old woman said, “there is a price to pay.
I must have the child a month from today.”
The old woman gave the king the flower, smiled, and shuffled away,
And the king gave her the flower on the 4th day of May.

Weeks later, the queen gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl.
At birth, the girl had golden hair, the finest in the world.
The boy, unlike his sister, did not have golden hair.
Instead, his hair was brown like that of a grizzly bear.
But the king, forgetting his promise to the woman with grey hair
Went on with his life without a care.
However, an hour or so after the twins were brought forth,
The witch appeared a month later, on June 4th.
For the magic flower, you see,
Had the power to make you look, feel and function like you are 23.
Not wanting to lose even a mite of that power
She made up her mind to steal back the flower, whatever state it may be in.
She took the twins in the middle of the night and ran away,
Accidentally waking the king and queen and leaving them in disarray.

Along the moonlit path she ran
Away with a horse and the young woman and man.
Somewhere along the way the path became uneasy
And the horse grew tired and weary.
Then, without warning, the boy fell off the horse and into the woods.
Thinking him dead, she said “‘Tis better this way”, adjusted her hood
And ran away, with only the girl
The girl with golden hair, the finest in the world.

Without the young prince and princess,
The royal family became a mess.
Without her children to comfort her still,
The queen became quite depressed and very ill.
Then one day a servant came to the king and told him the news.
“Your wife has died, at about a quarter past two.”
The king, very saddened and grieved
Nodded heavily and said “Leave.”
Without his queen beside him to comfort him,
Eventually, his servants found him dead, a knife beside him.
Without a king and queen, the royal palace fell into disorder,
Every other duke, duchess, and lord vying for the scepter.
However, one royal guard remained loyal to the king and queen
And vowed that he would find the prince and princess, despite how impossible it would seem.
Yet despite his best efforts, he could not find either
Because one lived in the forest, and one in a tower.

While the royal house fell apart,
The prince and princess’s lives were off to a decent start.
They were both alive and healthy,
Apart from each other, and happy, but not wealthy.
The old witch took the girl as her own
And raised her in a castle well outside the forest zone.
She named her Rapunzel, after the magic golden flower
That cured the queen during that dark hour.
And the boy? He was found by wolves, black, silver, and grey,
Who had compassion on him, took him to their den, and gave him a place to stay.
The wolves were magical wolves, who could think rationally and talk.
They taught the lonely boy how to eat, speak, hunt, and walk.
He learned quickly the ways of the forest
And soon the wolves named him Hunter, for soon he could do it better than the rest.

Many years passed and during that time,
The Duke of Westchester claimed the throne
In a joust, for his horse could turn on a dime
And trample his opponents, leaving the throne all to his own.
Meanwhile, the guard, Charles, still loyal to king and queen
Set out to find the young twins.
He took a small band of 13
In hopes that the royal family would have the throne again.
He passed through the woods and in the distance, heard singing.
He went in that direction, thinking
“It must be an omen, bringing good news
Or an angel sent to protect me and you.”
Then, at the forest’s edge, Charles saw
Not an angel, but a very tall wall.
A wall of a castle, so high and so grand
That no mortal could match it, the best in the land.
And once again, he heard a tune
And soft! It was a girl singing about longing for something new.
Charles rushed forward and shouted at the top of his lungs
“Who art thou, young one?”
Now Rapunzel was startled, for the voice was another
It was not the witch, who raised her and said “Call me mother.”
But the voice was not angry, in fact it was kind.
She thought to herself “Perhaps Mother won’t mind.”
Shyly, she answered, “Just a girl named Rapunzel.”
Suddenly, Charles was deep in his thoughts, lost in a whirl.
“Could this be the queen’s daughter”, he thought to himself
As he remembered the golden flower that he only saw once, sitting on a shelf.
He shouted again, “May I come up?”
She reluctantly replied, “I suppose you can come up.”

Meanwhile, his men decided to stay behind and scour the rest of the forest green.
What they found surprised them beyond their wildest dreams.
They saw a pack of wolves and a young man,
Bared down to the waist, strong and tan.
He did not seem afraid of the wolves. In fact, he seemed brave.
For this was Hunter, Rapunzel’s twin brother, whom the wolves saved.
Needless to say, the men were quite confused.
They had never seen such a sight as this.
Hunter, though quite surprised, stood still and mused.
The wolves told him stories of humans, but he had never seen one, clad in bright armor like this.

After some time staring at each other,
One of the soldiers broke the silence and said to Hunter,
“Ah, excuse me, sir, we have reason to believe
That you are the long lost son of the king and queen.”
Charles had a similar conversation with Rapunzel, the girl
After he climbed up the steep tower that left him in a dazed whirl.
Rapunzel was easily convinced. All she asked for
Was to be shown a painting of her family and the crown she would have worn.
But the boy, he needed to be shown more than bling.
The son of a king? Why, he had never heard of such a thing!
But upon conversing with the wolves and finding it to be true
He turned and said to the soldier, “I suppose I’ll go with you.”
Likewise, the girl said the same.
However, she had a woman to look after her, who held claim to her name.
“I would love to go,” she started, quite uneasily,
“I’ve always wanted a brother. But I shan’t. Mother would be flustered easily.
She would go crazed looking for me.
Who knows what kind of magic she has up her sleeve.”

After some persuasion, Charles led Rapunzel out of the tower,
Firmly yet gently holding her hand like a delicate flower.
And Hunter, glancing one last time at the wolves, the only family he has ever known
Set off to the castle to be with his own.
Haply, as the young girl predicted,
The old witch soon arrived at the tall castle so well-hidden and protected.
And noticing that her flower, Rapunzel, was not there
She threw a fit that would give an old warlock a scare.
She tossed on her coat, she flew down the stairs
And burst out the door with a seething air.
Of course, it must be mentioned, that she did not leave
Without putting a few magic spells, books, and potions under her sleeve.
She dashed off into the forest toward the castle
Hoping to involve the duke in this needless hassle.
But as she flew through the woods with great care
The eldest wolf smelt the magic and had a scare.
For the wolves that raised Hunter were magical,
And they had a keen sense for anything unrealistic, unnatural, and phenomenal.
The eldest wolf cried to the moon and gave a loud bark
That meant “Make haste after Hunter. He is being chased by a wizard’s arc!”
And so speedily did the wolves obey his command,
That they caught up to him in an instant, just before he reached the royal land.
Not having time to explain, the wolves immediately jumped to the defensive
Readying themselves for anything odd and apprehensive.
And when they heard a rustling through the trees,
One leapt forward… in the direction of Rapunzel’s knees!
Now, thanks be to God, Rapunzel was a smart young lady
Who always took great care to have the right accessory.
Today, as she scurried away with Charles,
She snagged a frying pan, rope, matches, scissors, and marbles.
Reflexively, she grabbed the pan out of her rather large bag
And held it defensively in front of the wolf, whose pace now slowed to a drag
For something about this girl seemed familiar, it seemed,
Though she had 90 feet of golden hair and was 18.
The wolf tenderly came to Rapunzel’s feet
And smelt the exact same smell they found on Hunter when they first did meet.
Upon confirmation from Charles and the beasts,
Rapunzel and Hunter rushed toward each other and embraced in a long-overdue greet.
However, it must be remembered,
That the old witch was still coming to see who stole her most valuable family member.

It was at this moment that the witch arrived
To claim her most precious, and quite frankly, only prize.
When she saw the two embracing,
She thought she saw an entirely different scene.
What else was she to think as her thoughts were racing
When she saw a half-naked boy with her “daughter” so pristine?
She flew at him in a blind, maddened rage,
But Hunter was more than ready to outmatch her clumsy pace.
For the old woman was growing blind, and his sight was sharp as an eagle’s
And he saw her lunge at him like a drunken seagull.
All at once, there was a flurry of spears, swords, arrows and teeth
As the soldiers, wolves and Hunter fought against this fiend.
Then pausing for breath, she reached into a sheath
And pulled out a sorcerer incantation book from which to read.
As she began to recite the spells in the mystical language
Another voice began doing the same.
It was Rapunzel, for she had grown up listening to “Mother” repeat that same language
Over and over like an off-course bullet train.
Unknowingly, the girl had recited a verse
That would undo her spells, reverse the effects, and for the old woman, make them all the more worse.
The witch suddenly stopped to catch her breath
And tried to place the book back in her sheath.
But she could not. Her powers were gone
Quicker that you could say “Heave!” like they were never hers to be won.
And so, without any abilities to keep her alive,
She lunged towards Rapunzel’s hair, but instead gouged out the eldest wolf’s eyes.
Both Rapunzel and Hunter felt his pain,
And in turn, upon the witch, make blows rain.
Hunter hit her with every last weapon he had
And Rapunzel with spells and a frying pan.
All at once, the witch vanished,
But so too did the wolf.
And though the evil one’s reign was altogether finished
So was the life of the wolf.
Mourning, Hunter carried him into the castle to which the soldiers led him.
They let him bury the wolf, and on his tombstone, Hunter engraved an angel’s wing.

Now you may have guessed how this story ended, happy ever after and adieu.
But it was not so for the Duke of Westchester, whose ending I will now tell you.
The Duke was reprimanded for unlawful seizing of the throne,
And for his punishment, King Hunter and Queen Rapunzel requested he be sent to a prison of his own.
And as they were being crowned, the twins together at last
Fell on each other with hugs and kisses and tears that for a whole hour did last.
If you ever visited the British Isles before the year 1492,
You may have by chance happened to see the duo I described to you.
Unlike the rest of the kings before him,
Hunter did not have any royal tops to adorn him.
Nevertheless, he was just and kind like his father and his mother
Who, if they were watching from heaven, would send smiles from one to another.
And Rapunzel? She cut her hair and felt a weight of the past leave her.
If you saw her, she would have brown hair, and you could scarcely recognize her
Save for the wildlife that so often crept by her royal chair
Like the wolves that raised Hunter, a deer, chameleon, or bear.
And with the royal family back in place,
The whole kingdom prepared a feast without the slightest haste.
The British citizens were proud to be British, for what else could they be
But happy and free under the guidance of King Hunter and Rapunzel the queen.