When in Doubt, Sing or Shout: Yeats Challenge, Day Thirteen

So, this poem was going to be something else, but it decided to be this. A bit of fun then, and perhaps a hint of Into the Woods for Jane’s A Month with Yeats Poetry Challenge, Day Thirteen. Here’s today’s quotation:

“Away, come away:

Empty your heart of its mortal dream.”

–W. B. Yeats

 

She ran for hours–or a day

ran off the path to far away

ran from the wrath of the angry queen

ran to the canopy of forest green.

 

Who knows why the queen was in a choler

but angry she was, and heard to holler

for the girl to be whipped, or maybe dead

and so, the girl had run, had turned and fled

 

Finally, when she could run no more

she stopped there, where she’d never been before

and wandered then from the wooded lane

why—she never quite could explain.

 

As though through a door, she walked inside

the air shimmered here, yet she unterrified

of colors brighter, and nothing as it seemed,

a voice said, “empty your heart of its mortal dream.”

 

Before her stood a fairy prince,

or so she thought from her very quick glimpse,

to him she said, “really sir, if it’s all the same

I rather return from whence I came.”

 

Then not really certain of how a fairy to fight,

she sang quite loudly with all her might

and with her song he was beguiled

and surprising her, he stood and smiled.

 

“I’d not keep you here against your will

Why look at you, a child you’re still,

Though because your voice is sweet and pure

I’ll escort you out from our magic door.”

 

And so, the girl went back out into the wood

gathered her wits, as best she could,

ran far away back to the queen,

whose anger had passed, now nowhere to be seen.

 

Be careful then if from the woods you wander,

be careful first, and stop to ponder

if you have the wherewithal to sing or scream

if ever asked by fairy prince to give up your mortal dreams.